Cosmic Accident
by amongthewinged
Summary: It started as an accidnt. Not my fault at all. And things spiraled completely out of controle. Ok, I might have had something to do with that.
1. Not my fault!

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An accident was how it started. One of those random acts of fate that turn the world upside down and leave you blinking in confusion.

It wasn't even my fault. Like I said, a stupid mistake. An accident.

I had successfully hid my unique, um, 'gift', for the past ten years. A little brush with the Paladins and I was forced to go into hiding, diving completely under the radar. It completely wrecked my social life.

Not that I really had one. I'm what people call intelligent, smart, brilliant, a genius. Take your pick. Basically it means that I can't open my mouth in public without saying something so nerdy it makes me blush magenta and want to crawl under a rock for the rest of my life. Let me tell you, high school dances were pure torture. Scratch that, worse than torture.

But like I was saying, I was under the radar. Well, actually, not completely. I guess you couldn't call having my figure on the news every few weeks 'under the radar'. But I don't know if the Paladins were turning a blind eye or what, because they never came after me on those little expeditions into the outside world. Then again, most of the jumpscars were in the middle of burning buildings, raging rivers, places now covered by scalding mud, lava, or boulders bigger than I am. What can I say? People are in danger, and I like to do what I can.

Maybe the key was they never saw my face. I never stayed for the cameras, vanishing in an instant as soon as the rescued opened their mouths to thank me. I keep my head down, use my long hair or a hood to cover my face. I never say a word. Appear and vanish like smoke.

Dozens of times. And they never as mush as showed a hair. But one slip up in the library…

Yeah. The library. That place filled with books that no one popular would dare set foot. And this was no ordinary library. This was the library frequented by some of the most renowned astrophysicists in the world. It's filled with all these books on supernovas, asteroids, meteors, black holes, and, my favorite and passion, worm holes. All those delicious equations just _waiting_ for an intelligent person to come sink their brain into.

I'm a nerd. I admit it freely.

It's like the way some girls act when they see a cute boy. They just go all drooly and melt in place, and the thing they call a brain turns to putty. Well, I get like that when I find a really good book or a particularly juicy piece of info. When things really start to click in my head and everything starts to make sense.

And I lost it. In the middle of the library, I jumped.

Not far, just up a few feet to the next level, to grab another, well worn, book I consider a dear friend of mine. Like I mentioned, I have no social life.

And in that crucial moment, when I vanished and reappeared in an instant, someone forgot to blink. And that person knew exactly what I was in that instant. They were in the right place at the right time. A cosmic accident.

They weren't there hunting me. Or hunting at all. If they were, they would have had the library emptied faster than I could blink and have those stupid lightning rods they love so much out. I'm sure of it.

And once they knew, it couldn't have been that hard to track me. I do, after all, have a library card. It even has my picture on it. I wouldn't steal these books. These are some of the most valuable tools in the field, some of them the only copies in the world. I'm not that callous.

Of course, my real name isn't on the card. My real address isn't in their database, nor my real phone number or birthday. The only tidbit of information on there is that I have a Ph.D in Astrophysics. The college the library is connected to requires it, and I wasn't going to get in there with anything less than a Masters. Might as well ensure my membership.

And that was all they needed. My picture and my degree and they did what the college couldn't; ignore the dead end profile I had created on my grad school's database and trace the photo all the way back to my elementary school and get my real name.

After that, they managed to find where I was living. My residence isnt in the same city as the library. Its not even in the same country. It's in a tiny, obscure town in the European countryside, where I rent a nice, sunny, two story house from a sweet, wealthy old couple who aren't there most of the time. Lucky for them, they picked the right week to visit the sunny Spanish beaches.

Which is why you can imagine my surprise when my doorbell rings one rainy Monday afternoon.

They were in luck. I was home, as opposed to on the other side of the world, and glued to my computer monitor with a cup of tea, waiting for my state of the art processor to finish running a set of radiation readings from a galaxy three million light years away through a complicated equation so I could compare it to another set in a different galaxy. I had let the computer crunch that set this morning. It had taken most of the morning.

"Coming!" I yelled at the door as the bell rang loud enough to snap me out of a calculating haze. I walked to the door, opening it without looking up from the thick stack of sheets I had in one hand. It took me a few seconds after the door opened to raise my eyes from the paper. The sight of three Paladin outside my door completely drove the numbers from my mind. And trust me, it takes a lot to do that.

"Oh ****."

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Reviews welcomed and loved like gooey chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate.


	2. Black, White, and Worm

Disclaimer: Don't own.

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"Miss Sara Bryans? We're from the CIA." The guy in front, the one who had knocked on my door, flashed a badge in front of my face, moving it too fast for me to actually get a good glimpse at it. The gold paint was probably peeling off the still warm plastic.

"Of course you are. And your probably also from the FBI, MI6, NSA, DHS, and WHO. Whatever the occasion calls for." I leaned against the doorframe.

The guy I was facing was tall and heavy built. He was wearing the standard grey coat the underdogs wear. He didn't look that old, maybe late twenties. His hair was spiked and dyed black.

"We would like to ask you some question." He continued, unfazed.

"Sure you would. 'And what would you like on your gravestone, Miss?' And by the way, CIA where's suits and dark glasses. Have you seen no movies from this century?"

"Look, Miss Bryans… Or would you prefer Kaitlyn Aldrin?" He switched tactics, his tone becoming threatening.

"Kate works."

"Miss Kate, there have been reports of-"

I cut him off. "You know what, I really don't want to hear your fake excuse for knocking on my door. We both know it's not real and-" Behind me the computer beeped. "Ooo, results." I jumped to the printer. It was one of the ones found in offices, and was shooting out a thick stack of papers.

The jitterbugs at the door leapt a foot in the air when I vanished. I heard the telltale click of lightning rods being raised.

"Not near the expensive machinery. Geeze." I looked back at the list of numbers. My eye's skimmed the pages as my brain began to whirl.

"Miss Aldrin…"

"AHA!" I cried. I grabbed the box of tacks sitting next to the computer and jumped.

Like I may have said, I have a nice two story house. Kitchen downstairs, a small library stuffed with books and a bedroom upstairs. My living room is mostly open space; it takes up two floors. Of the three outside walls that make up the living room, two are floor to ceiling windows, east and west. I get some very nice sun sets and rises when I'm up at odd hours working on a problem. That is, when I'm home when the hour's are odd here.

The third wall was completely papered over. Not with some homey print or anything. I'm not the crazy cat lady who lives down the road. (I only have two. A ragged black cat missing part of an ear. He's Strange Quark, SQ for short. I also have a fluffy white Persian name Charm Quark, following above abbreviation.) Anyway, the walls are papered with plain white butcher paper. And about half of that, a twelve foot column, is covered in dark black writing.

Most of it's radiation equations and long strings of numbers. There are a few sheets of paper pinned around, mostly followed by hurried, slashing writing. I don't know why, but it helps me to see everything laid out.

When I had first rented the house I had asked for, and received, permission to put in a foot and half wide cat walk along the wall. It divided the wall evenly in half and was what I was standing on now.

I laid the first sheet against the wall a little way above my head and tacked it. I made tow rows, one for each set of data and pulled a highlighter out of the deep pocket of my coziest sweatpants. I was running the yellow marker over a long row of numbers when I heard footsteps below me. I turned slightly and saw the Paladin's had crossed into my sanctum and were staring cautiously around.

"Oh, sorry. I'm kinda busy right now." I turned back to my numbers. "There's a pitcher of iced tea in the kitchen if you want some." What can I say? When I get going on a really good problem my brain diverts power from every other conscious thing. Including short term memory.

I pulled a whiteboard marker from my endless pocket and began to scribble under the pages. A nice long equation for calculating radiation. I was oblivious to all else as the marker etched across paper.

I didn't even notice that I jumped right next to a Paladin when I went to grab my calculator and narrowly avoided being electrocuted. Reality finally came back to me when I finished writing down the last number on my second equation and felt CQ's tail winding around my legs. How those two managed to get over here is a mystery to me. The catwalk only covers the one wall, and the trim running across the glass is only two inches wide.

"Look at this! _Look at this!_" I was ecstatic to say the least, jumping up and down on the catwalk. My squealing attracted the Paladin's attention. I think they were in my kitchen, because that's where they cam rushing from. "_They're the same, the exact same!_" I jumped next to the computer and grabbed a thick black bar a foot or two long and jumped back. I pressed a button on the side and a line of light came from the bar. I held it parallel to the wall and ran it over my column of writing. On the computer screen behind me the writing appeared on the screen as the scanner in my hand transmitted the information wirelessly to the computer.

"What's the same?" Those three words were all it took to unleash my torrent of words. Hey, like any scientist, I live for explaining my work.

"These two numbers! This ones from a singularity in one galaxy, and this other one is from another singularity in a separate galaxy, almost two hundred million light years away from the other. But their radiation is the same, only opposite of each other. They have the exact same radiation. Do you have any idea how small of a chance that that occurs randomly? It's like one in googol. The really big number, not the website. But since their opposites, one is pulling in radiation and the other is expelling it. On the other side of the universe! It's a black hole and a white hole working together in perfect synchronization with the other.

"Basically, I just proved that wormholes actually exist in our universe! And this data spans more than fifty years, so not only does the wormhole exist, but it's stable!" At this point I was ready to explode. I looked back at the wall, at the long rows of numbers that symbolized years and years of work and dedication. My whole life had been building up to this moment. Tears started to prick my eyes.

"So?" A voice behind me asked, and my perfect moment imploded.

"'So?' _'So?!'_" I almost screeched. "If they can exist in space they can exist here. And I have proof." I jumped right in front of the unfortunate questioners face. He leaned back, startled at my sudden appearance. "See? That exists. It's not something random, it's something that has a rational cause and therefore a ration beginning." My nose was inces from his face and my voice was low and scary intense as I flung the words at him.

But the word _beginning_ reminded me that I had more work to do. My discovery had only scratched the surface of the world to be uncovered. Starting with how the heck a human could produce a wormhole around themselves as control where it went. My brain instantly diverted to begin to tackle the problem.

"But this must require an awesome amount of energy." I muttered. "Where would a human be able to access such an energy? It would have to be equal to a number of atomic explosions…" The words brought forth the memory of when my family had died. Explosion cause by a machine. A machine belonging to the people who were currently invading my house. A machine that could…

"So it wouldn't take a lot of energy." I said. I turned around and looked at the black spikey haired leader. "But you already knew that, didn't you?" I asked.

In a flash he raised his lightning rod and fired the net at me. I jumped fast, vanishing from sight into an enclosed square room in the middle of my house. This room had no doors and no lights. Instead it was lit by the glow of a double bank of computers that reached to the ceiling. All the processing power I need for my work. There was a knapsack with clothes waiting on a stool in the middle of the room. I grabbed the pack and turned around. At my eye level was a small touchpad and a flash drive sticking out of the banks of computers.

I had anticipated this moment, when they figured out where I lived and came after me. So I was prepared. The entire system, except for a set of very expensive gravity sensors lent to me by an esteemed colleague of mine.

Right, the sensors. They would have to be moved. I grabbed them and jumped over to his lab. It was midnight there. I left the sensors in an unmonitored corner of his storage closet for him to find in the morning and jumped back to my house.

Anyway, the rest of the system ran through a single converter that directed all the power that ran to the computers. The flash drive that I mentioned earlier was set up to automatically save everything I put on my computer.

I entered a code into the pad and the light on the flash drive went dull. I snatched it out and stuffed it in my pocket. I looked around at the banks of computers and jumped.

The sun was still a little weak as it beat down on my exposed shoulders. I was standing on the hill that over saw my house. Through the tall window I could see the paladin's grey coats moving around my living room hurrdidly. One was bent over my computer, probably trying to pull data off of it.

"Sorry buddy." I murmured with a smile as I fished a small black box out of my pack. It had two buttons on it, one red and one green. Both had a guard and switch to activate it.

I flicked both switches and popped the covers off both buttons. Really, sometimes I feel so secret agent.

"It's a shame, really." I said to myself as I pushed the green button. On the memory bank a green light flickered on, releasing a virus that tore through artificial firewalls and ate through the computer memory in a heartbeat. I could see the Paladin at my computer console begin to panic as the numbers disappeared right off the screen.

"All that expensive equipment." I pushed the red button. A second light flashed on the converter as it rerouted power from the grid into my delicate circuitry. The sheer amount was equal to a lightning bolt in power. I could almost imagine the circuit board spark as the power surge raced through, and finally blurring as the heat became to much and blew the fuses, popped the wires, and melted the plastic. An entire system, destroyed beyond repair in seconds. There was no way they would manage to pull anything off now.

I was about to jump away when I remembered my scrapbook. A red leather book, filled with newspaper clippings. It was sitting on the shelf in my living room. But it was way to risky to try to go back and grab it. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that. I shrugged my shoulders and jumped.

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If you have any questions about the astrophysics in this chapter, there are some excellent onliine sources.

Of course, most of it is purely theoretical.

Oh, and the exact workings of a wormhole are entirely my own idea.

Pleasepleaseplease review. Even if it's just a couple of words.


	3. Cosmic Collision

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Ok, a quick recap. I just completed my life's biggest goal, and at the same time been discovered by my greatest enemies, who ambushed my house and now I can never go back. And it's only ten in the morning, and I'm still wearing the sweatpants and tank top I woke up in, and not a hair is out of place.

Big, huh? Sounds just like a story. Ok, my hair isn't perfect, it's messed up and so frizzy I'll need a chainsaw to cut through it. My tank top's as wrinkled and creased as it was when I got out of bed at four in the morning(where I live. Lived). There's a tea stain on the leg of my pants and I probably have dark circles under my eyes. I'm homeless and have no clue what to do next.

Yes, I did just make one of the biggest discoveries in the history of modern astrophysics. But now I have no equipment to continue my work, and it's eating away at the back of my mind like a starving lion.

There are only two good things about this. One, I have all my work. Two, I'm sitting in a café in Venice, next to a canal and there's a great breeze coming off the water. You have to learn to appreciate the smaller things in life.

I paid the bill for my coffee and wandered into a corner before jumping. I always keep a change of clothes and a few hundred euros and dollars (it's a mix) in my emergency pack. I'm not really worried about money. Being a part time online professor and a part time researcher really pays for one person. I also wasn't worried about them cutting me off. I have ten different cards, each under a separate name and with a separate fake history. One is in my actual name, but I rarely use that.

I wind up in Florida, at a certain prestigious space center. There's a sign on the lab door.

_Closed for cleaning._

Cleaning? A gravity lab? Really? I sighed. There weren't many places with the super computers and data banks I needed for the next stage of my research. Take that number and cut in half for the number that had intelligent minds running the machines. Guess what you get?

A really small number.

I turned a deserted corner and jumped over to India, where I had a assistant research pass at the highest observatory in the world.

I have passes or connections all over the world. It's the good part of being a jumper.

I change in a bathroom and wrestle a brush through my hair. It's a very unattractive shade of mud, super fine, and loves to stick out in all directions.

Dr. Emaan is at the console. He's watching the giant telescope revolve around and fix on the coordinates he just entered into the computer.

It's dark here, probably around midnight. The lab's mostly deserted. The renowned researchers prefer to sleep at night and do their groundbreaking work during the day. They leave the newbie's and assistants to collect the data when the sky is dark. Dr. Emaan recently received his credentials from grad school and just hired on to the staff. So, as the new person, he gets the graveyard shift until he proves himself or another unfortunate newbie comes along.

He looks up when I knock on the door and come into the lab.

"Dr. Margaret. You're back from your trip early." Business trips are my excuse for not coming every day to all the places I have research jobs in. I'd never get any sleep, or anything done, that way.

"Finished up early. And I'm done." I wave the flash drive at him. His grey eyes immediately catch the slim object.

Emaan's taller than I am, and had the traditional thick black hair of his people. He's sharp, and very intelligent. He also had the thickest pair of glasses I have ever seen. It make him look like a complete nerd.

"This'll change the universe." I say as I plug the drive into the computers. I know it's a crony line, but it's true. The impact this could have is tremendous.

I slide into the chair in front of the three monitors. Really, they're more like TV screens than monitors. I pulled the information off the drive, putting my writing on one screen and the data on another, and my conclusion on the third.

Emaan adjusted his glasses and leaned forward on the table. "Amazing." He muttered as his eyes skimmed the results. "Simply amazing. A stable wormhole." He shook his head. "We must call-" He was cut off by a crash as the main door of the lab building, down a hall, crashed open. There were a few yells, followed by an electric crackle I know all too well.

A person appeared right in front of the door and slammed it shut. Their hand scrabbled for a lock.

" Where's the ****ing bolt?" The stranger snarled.

"It does not bolt." Emaan's clipped, precise speech was a stark contrast to the intruders Scottish accent. "We have no need of locks here."

"Well, you do now." He turned to look at us. "Which of you is it?"

"Is what?" Emaan asked. "And who are you?" Something heavy crashed into the door.

"Intro later, escape now." I said. I yanked my drive out of the computer and slung my pack across my shoulder. Grabbing Emaan by the arm, I jumped, taking us far away from the lab, back into the deserted regions of the mountains.

Emaan stumbled away as soon as I let go. Behind his glasses his eyes were wide and he was shaking uncontrollably. He was stuttering in his native language. Probably swearing at me.

I looked away, not really wanting to meet his eyes. In the moonlight I could see the misty jumpscar hanging in the air. I had never really concentrated on them before in my research. It was a complex three dimensional design. It made sense that something would be left of a forceful ripping of the spacetime continuum. But the really interesting thing was that it was closing up. Space and time was healing itself.

I was standing in front of the scar, my brain ticking, when the stranger from the lab jumped through, appearing right in front of me. We were standing almost nose to nose, his blue eyes looking into my brown ones.

"Oi! Watch where you stand." He snapped. I jumped back, startled. (The normal kind of jump, not the spacetime ripping kind.)

"Who… who are you people?" Emaan asks.

I turned around and took a step towards him. He shrank back slightly, before he seemed to catch himself and sit up. My face stayed blank, but it hurt. The really flowery, poetic way.

"Who wants to know?" The stranger snapped.

As soon as Emaan's eyes left me I jumped, appearing behind him and grabbing his coat. Before his brain could register what had happened I had jumped, taking him back to the neighborhood he had said he lived in.

"It's all been a dream." I said before jumping back.

"Well that was a nightmare. How do they show up so fast? It hasn't been more than half an hour." I complain as I reappear back on the mountain.

"Half an hour since what?" The boy snapped. He's as tall as I am and has floppy sandy hair.

"Since they showed up at my house. And who are you? Why the heck did you have to interrupt my work? Do you have any idea how important this is? This could be the secret to how we can jump? And who are you?" I snapped, the past hour crashing down on my shoulders. I sat down on a rock.

"Who're you?" He demanded. He was pacing, his eyes darting from peak to peak like he expected the Paladin's to jump out at any moment.

"Would you like my real name, or one of ten running alibis?" I asked. I didn't wait for an answer. "Call me Kate. I'm an astrophysicist."

"Griffin. I hunt Paladins."

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Reviews are always welcomed.


	4. Brain Waves

Thanks for being patient withe me! I know it's been so long.

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"So they followed you in under an hour? What did you do to make them so mad?" Griffin asked. I was watching the dawn, not really thinking. I was probably in a state of mild shock, between dodging lightning nets and jumping all over the world.

"Huh?" I shook my head. "Why? Right now I'm leaning toward a genetic twist that possibly harnesses spare energy and uses it to split the space-time continuum. But, since the human genome project is really only in the initial stages of it's work, I can't really be certain. I could, however-"

"OI! I don't know what your talking about and I don't care." Griffin burst in. I rolled my eyes.

"I can't find out any way because I'd need someone to run the test…" My brain sparked.

"Wait a sec, you can jump too!" I felt a smile break out over my face.

He looked slightly worried. "So?"

"Well, I can't run the tests _and_ be the subject at the same time. It compromises the results." I picked up my back pack and slung it over my shoulder. "I _need _someone to run the tests on. This is delicate machinery, not every idiot can handle it. Therefore, I need a subject."

He finally realized what I was getting at. Took him long enough. By the time he could flinch back I had grabbed his arm.

"I won't be your-" I jumped. "Lab rat."

We appeared in the middle of a dark room. A green glow came through a glass window on one wall. Through the glass they could see banks of computers and a row of monitors.

"Do go anywhere." I breathed into his ear. "Don't even move." I jumped outside the room and into a prep room. I pulled down one of the white lab coats and checked to make sure the lapel read Dr. Martins, one of my alibis.

I pulled out a badge and fixed to my coat before leaving and crossing the hall to a plain door labeled 'Test Room 1'. There was a scanner and a qwerty keyboard next to the door. I flashed my badge in front of the scanner and typed in my password. The door slid open with a click. I could image the laser that crossed the frame shutting down. Inside there was a whir as the computers booted up, alert to someone coming in the door.

I closed the door behind me and looked through the glass. Griffin was still standing where I had left him. I have to admit I was surprised. I'd thought he'd be long gone by the time I set foot in the room. I typed my password into the computer and left it to load all my stuff. There was a considerable amount on this system alone.

Locked cabinets line the wall next to a door that led to the testing room, where Griffin was. My key was tucked in the pocket of my lab coat, where I'd left it. This particular lab was not that choosy about where their keys went, as long as they stayed in the building.

I tugged on the handle of one of the EEG carts and wheeled it into the testing room.

"What's that?" He was suspicious immediately.

"This will measure the amount of activity in your brain by detecting-"

"I don't care how it does it." He snapped. I rolled my eyes dragged a chair over in front of the cart and pointed him into it. He sat warily. I set a bottle of blue gel on the cart and began to pull out electrodes.

"Normally, I'd try to use the cap." I told him as I began to apply the gel to the electrodes. "But I don't think it would work on top of all that hair." I eyed the thick curls and stuck the electrode to his skin.

"I'm going to try a few tests." I told him as I applied the electrodes. "Sitting, moving, and finally jumping. Can you jump equipment?" I asked, suddenly concerned for the fragile device.

"Probably." He said.

"You don't have any electronics with you? I'll need to take it." He shook his head just as I was about to stick on another electrode on.

Finally I hooked up the last of the electrodes. "Don't move. And try not to blink too much."

I stepped outside and booted up the computer. I put in the start command and set the timer for two minutes. I could have used the machine, but I wanted the data in the computer to run through the filters and be ready for analysis.

While I was waiting for the two minutes to pass I rummaged through my back pack, taking stock of what I had. A little less than a thousand dollars American cash, and international card, of which I had no records in any of my alias's or at my house, that had been collecting interest, a spare change of clothes, the detonator to crash my home system, the keys to a San Francisco flat, and threes identity card, each for a different lab, with a different name, and a photoshoped picture that looked enough like her at a cursory glance but different enough to slip through face recognition software, and a slip of encoded passwords, only half of which were mine.

The printer whirred as a sheet of paper filled with squiggly lines came rolling out. I grabbed it and looked it over. Normal.

I opened the door.

"You'll be happy to know your normal brain functions are running smoothly and normally." I began to stick a few more electrodes on his head.

"For this next test I need you to walk back and forth in front of the cart. The wires are long enough for three feet on either side. Try not to jiggle the wires too much."

I left him to pace back and forth. The two minutes assigned passed quickly as I watched the data trickle into the computer. I was running it through a special filter to eliminate the signals caused by moving muscles. These two test were just to establish a baseline of comparison.

"Are you sure you can jump it?" I asked. "And not break it?"

"Yeah sure." He yawned. I could tell he was getting impatient.

"Just a foot to the left." I reminded him. "And try not to break the floor. Or the equipment."

I started the EEG machine. "Whenever your ready."

He vanished, and reappeared where I'd told him too. The cart, which he had pulled along with him, looked undamaged. The computer beeped. At the same time he had jumped, there had been a huge spike in brain energy. Unfiltered, that it. I typed in the filter command to take out anything not associated with brain energy. It should eliminate any spare electricity caused by the wormhole, rather than a synapse.

As the sheet came reeling out of the printer I let out my breath, not even realizing I had been holding it.

The spike was still there. Which meant that jumping was a brain function, and there froe coded into our DNA. There was a jumping gene.

But, of course, anomalies happen. "Again."


	5. Electrowhachamacallit

Thanks for bearing wiht me. I know it's been a while.

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I rubbed my eyes and yawned. It was noon here in Sweden. But I wasn't living in Sweden. My flat was in San Francisco, where it was one of the small hours of the morning. I adjust quickly to time zone changes, but living somewhere and working on the other side of the globe for two weeks straight is enough to steal the pep out of anyone.

The last scientist left the room for his lunch break. I had exactly thirty minutes before the first of them began to return.

I pushed my chair away from the centrifuge, where I had been spinning blood samples. I took me three minutes to set up my operation; tray, gel, anodes, voltage. I prepared my pippetts and crossed to the freezer. It was a walk in locker, kept around negative ten centigrade. Most things in there were frozen with liquid nitrogen. One set of vials tucked in the back was not.

It had taken me a week and a half to prepare the samples of DNA from vials of my blood, then use enzymes to separate the large strands from the smaller ones.

Each of the test tubes had two label, one on top of the other. The green label said that the tube was filled with dolphin DNA, sitting for a while to allow it to filter naturally. One of the doctors I was working with was doing some sort of project on mammal DNA and it's history. He was a friend of mine from college, and I had agreed to help him if I could have some free lab time.

Under the green label was a hand written white one. I selected the one with SmG, which meant small genes. I had already tested the large genes, and found nothing abnormal. So today I was testing the small gene fragments.

I used the pippetts to place milligrams of the DNA in the wells in my gel filled tray. I hooked up the anodes and let the current run through the gel. It's a process called DNA electrophoresis, that separated DNA using the charge of the phosphate backbone.

I curled my legs under me in the chair and pulled out my ipod. It was discouraged in the lab, but hey. I was alone. There was no one to care. And it's not like there were deadly viruses in this particular lab. It would have taken me much longer to get clearance if there had been.

Eyes half closed and listening to a rapid beat, I watched the little lines of light migrate across the gel. The electric current was making the gel glow slightly.

I shook my head to clear it and glances at the clock. Half of my time had elapsed. The click of the keys made a nice counterpoint to the music in my ears as I brought up the page of normal small genes.

(Warning: Science. Non geeks look away)Everyone's DNA is different. Yes, I get that. But all of us have eyes, ears, skin, hair, bones, muscles, a stomach, a spleen, etc. The list goes on. And each of those things has a gene, or several genes that codes for it. And all those genes are in every single cell in our bodies. So by checking off all the genes that make my hair grow and such, I could look for the ones that were only common in certain people. Jumpers, for instance.

Five minutes later I shut off the current. Going line by line, I compared my DNA with the database. I had gone more than three quarters of the way down the tray before I found anything slightly abnormal.

I began to click through the database, looking for something similar. For all I knew, it could be anything from a mole to bone cancer to an extra arm. Eight minutes later and I was torn between frowning and jumping for joy. There was nothing like what I had found. Nothing even remotely close. It was so far off the charts that if normal was the earth and abnormal was the moon, this was the crab nebula.

I sat back and whistled under my breath. Behind me the door opened and voices spilled in.

"I really think the capillary electrophoresis is such and outdated method… Sara!"

George, the scientist I was working with, walked in. I nudged the tray slightly, shoving it behind me.

"I though you went to lunch. Been working overtime?" He asked, washing his hands in the sink by the door.

"Nah. I had a big breakfast." I leaned back in my chair, hoping to appear casual. I probably failed miserably.

"Were you working during the lunch break?" He asked, looking around the lab. There were trays and tubes and equipment stuffed into the corner.

I shook my head. "Just cleaning up." I grabbed a rack of tubes, my vial among them. While my back was turned to him I slipped the DNA into the pocket of my lab coat.

"Whoa. What's this?" I heard George ask from behind me. I whirled, almost sending the test tubes flying.

George was holding the tray with my electrophoresis in it. I felt my throat close as he traced the weird gene down the row.

"Hey, guys. Come look at this." I heard a bustle beyond the closed lab doors.

Somehow I managed to cross the space between us at a walk. I grabbed the gel tray out of his hands. George's eyes widened slightly.

"Well, would you look at that." I said, feigning surprise. "Must be a mutation in the dolphin DNA. Hey Alice, wasn't this your tray?" I called back through the doors.

"Probably." Alice yelled through the door. She had been running multiple tests all morning.

"Very interesting." George tugged the tray out of my hands. Turning my back to the computer screen, I brushed the keys with my fingers. The website closed.

"We really must follow this through. It could be a huge breakthrough." I felt slightly guilty to hear the excitement in his voice. It was a breakthrough. Just not his.

"Let me prepare that for study." I suggested, taking the tray back.

"Get a couple of pictures, also. Do you know which sample Alice was using?"

"One of the ones over by the sink, I think." I positioned the tray under the camera and snapped two pictures. The camera was slow, taking in a large amount on lightin order to get every detail. While I was waiting I fiddled with the cap on a bottle of distilled water.

The printer finally spit out the two pictures. One went in my pocket, the other on a shelf just above a vat of acid and right next to a bottle of solvent. I set the tray on the counter under the picture.

"Hey Sara, help me find the sample." George called from across the room.

As I turned to go help him, my elbow hit the bottle of distilled water. It fell onto the floor, water leaking out from under the loose cap. I stepped in the middle of the puddle of water, and my foot went out from under me.

I gasped as I slid sideways against the counter. My shoulder hit the shelf with enough force to jostle the bottle of gel solvent sitting on it. The bottle fell off the shelf, knocking the picture into the air. The square of paper fluttered through the air and into the vat of hydrochloric acid. The bottle of solvent landed on the tray of gel.

Chemistry took over after that. The solvent did what it was supposed to. It ate through the gel, cleaning away all evidence of the electrophoresis. I didn't even have to worry about the picture. The acid in that vat was highly concentrated.

George hurried over, and gasped in dismay.

"Watch your step." I warned. My shoulder ached. I had hit it on the shelf when I slipped. I was going to have a lovely bruise in the morning. "It's a little slippery."

"What happened?!" He almost screeched.

"I slipped. The floors wet." He snatched up the bottle of water and put the cap back on.

"Quick! Wash this off!" He shoved the tray of gel in my hands.

"What?"

"Fix it!" I shrugged. There wasn't any way to fix it. The gel was too soupy, and the lines of the DNA were already gone. But I could pretend.

I ended up washing most of the gel down the sink instead of 'fixing' it. I turned back in time to see George dry a scrap of paper off with a towel. Before I could get a good glimpse he slipped the paper into his coat pocket.

I shrugged it off.

The entire staff spent the rest of the day trying to duplicate what I had done. As a precaution, I moved the tubes with my DNA, including the one in my pocket, to the storage room and locked the door.

"I still don't understand." George sighed. "We didn't come anywhere close to what I saw before." Everyone else was filing out the door, calling goodbyes. I hung my lab coat up in my locker. With my body to block his line of sight, I transferred the picture to my handbag.

"Must have been a mutation of that strand of DNA." I said, shrugging.

"That must have been one heck of a mutation." He said as he left.

I smiled. He had no idea.

* * *

Honestly, if you're going to take the time to read this, you can take the few more seconds to drop me a few words about it.

It's not that hard, people.


	6. In the Dead of Night

My back popped as I stretched. The stool I was sitting on wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. But it was the only piece of furniture in the lab, so it was that or standing.

Some people might find a lab at night creepy. After all, there are several machines in crazy shapes that cast weird shadows. Weird flashing lights and beeping sounds. One actually sounds like a hive of upturned bees. That was the centrifuge as it whirled a sample of my blood around and around to purify it. I was quickly running out of my DNA samples, as had to strain more. In fact, that was what I was doing.

Well, right _now _now I was wishing for a cup of coffee as I waited for the machine to beep. I had all my enzymes lines up in front of me, a Petri dish and growth medium ready, and an oven perfect for growing bacteria already hot, and my journal spread out in front of me. All I needed was the strained blood to start my work.

I glanced at the starry sky out the window. It was 1:55 in the morning. Most sensible people were in bed or asleep right now. My internal clock had yet to reset from where my flat was.

Besides, the lab was abandoned at this time of night. It was perfect to get a little personal work done, when there wasn't anyone to look over my shoulder like George had done almost a week ago. I had been extra careful after that, hiding all my stuff and only working at night. It meant I was more tired in the day, but I had use the excuse of commute to delay my arrival by a few hours so I could grab some sleep. Isn't other people slogging over the roads every day a wonderful thing?

My pen was making a soft scratching sound as it etched over the paper. My journal was where I kept all my research, wrote out my progress, scribbled down crazy ideas, drew diagrams, and doodled when I was bored. It had to be the most personal thing I owned, aside from the scrap book.

I wandered over to the window when my handwriting began to blur in front of my eyes. It was a large square sheet of glass that looked out over the empty parking lot. I leaned against the frame and looked down at the puddles of orange light that decorated the lot. The lab two stories above the ground, a good twenty feet to drop. Nothing moved in the darkness, not even a few leaves stirring in the wind.

Which is why a slight twitch in the corner of my vision drew my eyes in an instant. George stepped out of the darkness in front of the building. Her was looking from side to side, obviously waiting for someone. I frowned and looked closer. He was also shifting his weight from foot to foot very quickly. He looked nervous.

I heard the centrifuge ding behind me, and was about to turn when I saw a black car making it slow way up the drive towards the building.

I waited, pressed against the side of the window, as the car, a black sedan, came to a stop in front of George.

I swear my heart had to stop beating for an few seconds as a Paladin stepped out of the car. Yes, a grey robbed (which works better as camouflage on a rainy day than at night), lightning rod carrying, jumper killing Paladin.

The Paladin, the guy with the spiky black hair that had knocked on my door in Europe was talking with George. It was a very rapid-fire conversation on the Paladin's part. He was just firing off questions. George look extremely nervous.

I felt sick. They were obviously here after me, and poor George was caught in the middle. He was a decent guy, and he didn't deserve to die. The Paladin's had quite the reputation for not caring who got in their way.

George pulled something out of his pocket. I squinted, trying to see it. There was a concave dish sitting on the counter next to me. I picked it up and carefully maneuvered it so it didn't catch the faint lamp light behind me. The dish acted like a lens.

The square of paper was crinkled, like it had gotten wet, and one edge was uneven and had an almost eaten look.

Eaten. I suddenly realized what it was. It was the picture I had taken of my DNA, the one that had been dropped into the acid. George must have fished it out, and realized that it wasn't dolphin DNA. He may have even figured out it was _my _DNA, which would explain why he was handing it to the Paladin right now.

I jerked back from the window, hoping the Paladin hadn't seen the sudden motion. Not daring to jump, they had equipment that would pick up the sudden gravity flux, I dashed across the room and twisted the key in the lock. Satisfied they wouldn't be able to get in, I hurriedly began to wash and put stuff away. I knew that I would be cutting it close, if Spiky Hair decided to come up the steps to the lab. I had been all set up, and it would take time to wash and return everything. If anything was out of place, someone would notice, and questions would be asked.

I was returning the bottles of enzymes to the freezer, the entrance of which was next to the door, when I head a faint scratching.

I paused. There weren't any animals in this lab to make that scratching noise. I stepped out of the freezer and softly closed he door behind me. The noise was coming from the door to the lab, the one I had locked. From the area of the handle, to be exact…

My eyes widened and I skipped to the side as the door slammed open. There was an electric crackle as a net shot through the space where I was just was.

I ducked under the counter to avoid another net. I started to move sideways at a crouch. Even though there were at least three people moving around in the room, there was barely any sound. I had booties over my flats, and the Paladins always wore shoes that made no sound on the floor.

The centrifuge dinged again. I swear we all must have looked like a cartoon or something, because everyone paused at the sound, and we all must have looked in the same direction. Then we all started to move at the same time.

I gave up one secrecy. The damage the Paladin's could do with my blood was more important than temporary safety.

I jumped to the front of the machine. My fingers were scrambling for the lid. I flung back the piece of plastic and grabbed for the vial. There was a yell and a click when I appeared, followed by an electric charge as the Paladin primed the rod. I twisted to the side to avoid a charged chord as soon as I had managed to wrap my fingers around the vial.

Spiky Hair was not among the Paladins invading my lab. There were tow of them, like I had guessed. One was levering a lightning rod at me, the other was reaching for something on the counter. My eye immediately caught on the object.

Among the clutter of stuff on the counter was my journal, spread open to a page. Resting in the binding was my flash drive. All of my life's work in one place, with in easy reach of my. And ten feet away from me.

I'm sure I shrieked something as I jumped across the room, reaching for my journal. The next thing I knew was electricity as 10,000 volts shot through my brain. The one guy was smart, seizing my desperation and shooting a cable at me as soon as I appeared. It had slammed me back against a wood piece, the ends wrapping around the edge of the wood shelf.

As soon as it appeared the electricity was gone. I looked up. By so twist of cosmic fate, both ends of the cable had wrapped around pipes that lined the wood. Following the laws of nature, the electricity had taken the path of least resistance and followed the pipes down into the ground instead of ricocheting around my body.

I ducked out from under the cables just as someone I didn't see grabbed my arm and pulled me through a wormhole. Suddenly the low light of the lamp and the buzz of electricity was replaced by starlight and white sand.

I jerked sideways and spun to find Griffin glaring at me.

"That's the second time I've had to save your sorry-"

"They… I … journal!" was all I could managed to get out before I jumped.

Griffin jumped at the same time I did, and since he still had a grip on my arm, the gravities did some weird twisty thing and we ended up somewhere neither of us probably intended.

"Are you crazy?" He yelled over the raging winds. We were standing on a shelf of ice, probably somewhere close to the north pole. The winds tore right through my skin and caked my bones in ice. Or at least that's what it felt like.

"No!" I yelled back. "But they can't get my journal!" I could barely see him through the whirling snow, even though he was standing right next to me.

"It's paper and scribbles! There's nothing important."

"Don't you DARE tell me that it's nothing important! It's what I've spent my whole life doing! Letting it go is like bringing all your dead Paladin's back from the g rave and equally as dangerous!"

We jumped at the same time again. This time I felt the ripping sensation as the two energies collided. We landed somewhere in Caribbean sea. Actually, we landed a good twenty feet above the surface of the water and fell the rest of the way. The splash had to have been amazing.

"They'll kill you." Griffin insisted. "It's too dangerous."

I glared at him, mostly because I knew he was right. "Fine. I won't go back."

He jumped us back to wherever he had first brought me.

"Do you know where their headquarters are? Becuase I'm not going to let this drop."

* * *

Oh the suspense.

Green button right below here

Press it and send me a few thoughts

Please?


	7. Live Chatter

"You can't be serious. You're just going to waltz into their headquarters and demand your journal back?" Griffin asked incredulously.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do." I responded, wringing water out of my shirt. "Because I'm a complete airhead. No, stupid!"

"Are you sure that you're not insane?"

"Yes."

"Really, because this is a pretty stupid idea. Are you sure you're not joking."

I ground my teeth together. Reaching over, I grabbed his head and pulled it down until his eyes were level with mine.

"Listen to me, because this is the last time I'm going to say it." I glared into his eyes. "I am going to break into their lab." I pronounced each word slowly, like I was talking to a little kid.

"Alright, I get it!" I let go and he jerked back.

"Now do you know where it is or what?" I went back to wringing water out of my hair.

"Why should I know?"

"Because you're the one living in a cave and hunting them down for a living." I snapped.

"How do you know I live in a cave?" He asked in confusion. I rolled my eyes and pointed behind him towards the crack in the cliff wall, as well as the machinery scattered around the opening. "Oh."

"So where are they?"

"I don't know, alright."

"So you never bothered to find out."

"No. I don't have a death wish."

"Well neither do I. But this needs to be done." I turned away from him and looked out over the desert dunes, not really seeing them. "Well, I know someone who might." I looked at the watch on my wrist before I remembered it had taken a saltwater bath. Shame.

"Well, thanks for the save." I said turning back around. "But I need to fly."

"Wa-"

I jumped straight to my flat, appearing in the middle of the living room.

Predictably, he followed a second later, sliding through the timespace rip before it could heal itself.

I ignored his call to wait, and instead stepped into my small bedroom, shutting the door and locking it behind me, more to make a point that anything. I slipped into a dry outfit and wrapped my still soaking hair in a towel. Daylight was coming in through the blinds. It was a change from midnight in Europe and dawn in the Caribbean.

I opened in the door just ad Griffin was about to pound on it again. He almost hit my nose.

"Are you going to insist on following me around, or can you be reasoned with?" I asked.

"I'm might insist. This is insane."

"Not if properly prepared. Speaking of which, I'm going to visit a friend, who might know where the lion's den is. If you're going to follow, I'm going to warn you now." I dropped the towel over the back of a chair. "He's a bit eccentric." I jumped.

I appeared in a dimly lit room. In the half light I could see stacks of comic books collecting dust, boxes with stray wires poking out of them, racks of silver gadgets, some held together by duct tape. Over the noise of a nearby highway I heard the hum of a powerful computer.

I stepped to the side, so if Griffin did choose to come, He wouldn't land right on top of me. I had to watch my footing; the place I had chosen to come through was in the middle several boxes of junk glass.

Griffin appeared right where I had been standing. "Where are we?" He asked, looking around.

"The owner had kindly asked me not to reveal the location. He likes his secrecy." I responded. I began to pick my way out of the junk and towards a door in the wall.

The room beyond the door was brightly lit, contrasting with the semi dark room I had just come from. It blinded me for a moment as I threw open the door.

"Merlin!" I called. "It's me."

"For goodness sake, Kate! Don't do that to me!" A tall, lanky figure stood up from in front of the computer monitor. He rushed up and threw both arms around me, lifting me off of the floor and spinning me around. I hugged him back.

"Kit-Kate, I was wondering if you were going to drop by soon! How long has it been? A month?" He set me down.

"It's been a week, you idiot. How ya' been?" I asked. Merlin looked like an explorer in a movie, an appearance he cultivated by wearing cameo fatigues that clashed with a loose hanging, brightly patterned beach shirt. He had brown hair that was spiked in the front from the number of times he ran his fingers through it when he was working.

"Excellent. Yourself?"

"Just fine. Made some groundbreaking discoveries. I trust you've kept the WMD making to a minimum?" Griffin made a noise from the door.

"She's joking, dude. Whose your friend, Kit-Kate?

"This is Griffin. He saved my but from the Paladins a couple of times."

"Nice, dude. I go by Merlin."

I took a deep breath. "Merlin, We have a problem."

"And I may have a solution. Shoot." Merlin collapsed into a swivel chair in front of the desk. He leaned back, relaxed.

"They took my journal."

Merlin sat up quickly staring at me.

"Not cool. How could you let them, Kate? Not cool at all."

"Like I had a choice." I snapped. "It's a little hard to fight back when you're getting electrocuted."

"Chill out."

"No." I began to pace back and forth. Merlin steepled his fingers in front of his nose, frowning.

"How bad can it be?" Griffin asked. "It's just a journal."

"Dude, I have seen her journal. It's bad."

"How bad?"

"Think zombie apocalypse. End of the race of jumpers. Disaster to the tenth degree. BAD."

"Exactly my point. We have to get it back. Which is where you come in." I leaned against his worktable. Unlike the storage room, this room was clear of clutter. Everything, from spare circuit boards to screwdrivers, had a place in one of the massive cabinets lining the walls. There was a wide table Merlin used as a workbench. A desk with a computer monitor was on the opposite side of the room. The machine itself was set between the desk and the wall, and came up to my waist from the floor. Merlin could have easily fit inside the computer if it had been hollowed out.

"Do you know where their base is? A lab or something where they might take the journal?"

"That depends on the timing. How long ago was the thievery?" Merlin wheeled across the room to a radio sitting a shelf. He began to fiddle with the buttons.

"Fifteen to twenty minutes ago. If that."

"Dude, you are one speedy jumper. There may be a chance." A blast of static came from the speakers. A twist of a dial and it resolved into slight buzz. Merlin and I held our breaths as Griffin looked on skeptically.

"What is that supposed to do?" He asked just as a blast of words came from the speakers.

"_-south Caribbean, tracked target into jungle island. Request more cables. Target is level four threat, short range jumper. Target is fleeing, presumed unarmed and docile. Over._" There was a buzz of static.

"_Request heard, Paladin ten. Two more units are being sent to help. ETA one hour. Look for the Chinooks with spare line. Good luck fishing. Over._"

"That was one generous helping of Paladonian chatter. Took me tree weeks of trailing them to find the right frequency." Merlin leaned back "No, Kit-Kate, I don't know where they run and hide to. But, sit on this baby long enough and you might find what you're looking for."

"Thanks. Now, if I intended to sneak in, got anything that might help?"

Merlin stared at me. "Dude, are you out of your freaking mind!"

"Can we skip the lecture? I already got it from him." I jerked my thumb at Griffin.

"Whether you approve or not, I'm going, using only a rusted fork if I have to. Now, you have two options." I held up a finger. "One, you can let me use the rusted fork and order me a tombstone, or two," I held up a second. "You can give me things that might help me get out alive. Your choice."

Merlin shook his head. "dude, do you really think so low of me. Of course I'll help." He shook his head. "A rusted fork? Really, Kate?"

I grinned at him. "What, you have something against forks? Think you can do better?"

He rolled his eyes while shaking his head before returning my grin.

* * *

The usual request. Drop me a few words.


	8. Gadgets and Gizmos

"Alright." I began. "They can sense the gravity flux created by the timespace rip, so our best bet is some kind of cloaking device."

"Dude. You've seen waaaay too many movies."

"You know what I mean. Got anything?"

Merlin leaned back in his chair and crossed his fingers over his face.

"Possibly." He hesitated uncharacteristically, the outer surfer slipping into the inner genius inventor. "Remember the pulse ox machine?"

I winced. That disaster had nearly cost both of us our lives.

"You can't be serious." I said incredulously

"I took the liberty of making a few adjustments…"

"MERLIN! You promised you wouldn't touch it!" I screeched.

"Dude. RE. LAX. I made sure there wasn't a single electrical device active. I even asked the landlady to turn off the generator for a few hours. You have no idea how much that cost me."

"You had to change the broken light bulb downstairs."

"YES! Dude, how'd you know?"

"Because when I talk to her last week she was ranting about it. Back to what's important." I paused to take a breath. "YOU WERE MESSING WITH THE PULSE OX MACHINE?!" Merlin winced.

"DUDE! No need to bust a lung! Yes, I played with it. Yes, I made sure it was safe first! I disconnected the magnet coil before I did as much a turn on a penlight! So relax already. I'm the expert, remember."

I sighed and dropped into the chair.

"You still shouldn't have done it." I said, draping a hand over my eyes. The last hour was starting to wear on me. Griffin gingerly chose a seat.

"Lucky for you I did. You're going to need it to get past the sensors."

"I would rather…"

"You will if you don't take it." Merlin said, leaning forward. He was completely serious now. "It works. I tested it multiple times. What happened last time shouldn't happen again."

I raised an eyebrow, but didn't make a remark.

The silence hung for a minute.

"What is a pulse ox machine?" Griffin finally asked.

"It's a medical machine that monitors the levels of oxygen in the blood stream. Merlin found it and rehashed it to monitor the levels of current in a circuit." I said wearily.

"Kit-Kate, you go get it. It's in the storage room. Also, you might as well grab the concussor, Lightning, and…" He trailed off, trying to remember exactly what he had stored away in his jungle of a storage room.

"How about the Houdini and the redlight?" I suggested. They were among the gadgets on the list I had drawn up once, on a quest to help him organize. Needless to say, I had failed miserably.

Merlin nodded. "And while you do that, I'll explain to the newbie exactly what it is we do."

"Be careful what you call him. He's killed more Paladin's than you've seen in your life." I called over my shoulder as I walked through the room and crossed into the twilight of the storage room. As a courtesy to Merlin I didn't jump around his house, only in and out when I absolutely had to. It kept the attic off the Paladin's flux readers.

I hunted through the trash, looking for the pulse ox. In the other room I could hear Merlin and Griffin talking in low voices.

I finally spotted the green monitor of the pulse ox on the far shelf. While I crossed the room I scooped up something that looked like a enlarged pocket knife, a flashlight with an enlarge battery back and a red filter over the lense, and square flashlight about the size of my hand.

Tucking the monitor under my arm, I paused, sweeping for the concussor.

"How long have you known Kate?" Griffin asked. I could hear him pretty clearly through the walls.

"We've know each other for, oh, ten years. Been watching each others back from the Paladins. Kate mentioned you last time we were online. Speaking of which, HEY ELF QUEEN!" He raised his voice to call through the walls, addressing me by my character in the MMORPG we played together.

"Yes, oh mighty Head Sorcerer?" I called back

"We still on for Saturday's raid on the Goblin Cave?"

"That depends on whether or not I find the stupid concussor before then." I called back. I heard a scramble from the other room and the sound of drawers opening and closing.

"Uh, Kate? I found it." He called back.

"You were working on it, weren't you?" I asked with a sigh. If it was in his work room, then undoubtedly in was in pieces.

Sure enough, when I crossed back in to the light, the concussor was lying on his stark white work table, both speakers hanging on by wires.

When it was assembled, the concussor looked like a double sided maraca. Two cones on either end, with a thick grip in the middle where they met. Each of the cones was actually a powerful speaker, large enough to cover my hand. When I wrapped my fingers around the middle section, the tips of my fingers just touched. The entire thing was covered in a thick layer of plastic, except for the holes in the speakers. The idea was that it could be thrown and not break. And throwing it was a good idea. The concussor had a built in timer of fifteen seconds, but it was still best to be as far from it as possible.

I sighed. The thing has been torn apart, one of the speakers completely disassembled. The battery and control chip had been removed from the dark blue plastic casing, and the protective cover was lying in two halves off to the side.

"Don't worry, though." Merlin assured me as I laid the four things I had gathered on the table, away from the concussor. "I'm almost finished with it. A few more hours and…"

"What if we don't have a few hours?" I snapped, suddenly feeling unreasonable. "'Zombie apocalypse', remember? Your words, not mine."

Merlin looked at me with a level gaze, taking in my crumpled clothes and still wet hair. Self consciously, I reached up and touched it. My hair was beginning to crust with salt.

"You're worn out." He said in a calming voice. "Storming in now would only get you killed, and you don't even know where they are. Go take a shower and get a few hours of sleep. By the time you've done that, I should have this baby modified and back together again."

"You're sure?" I asked. He nodded.

"Arright." I yawned and turned.

Griffin was still sitting in one of the chairs, with a stubborn look on his face and his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"You should probably just…"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. You're about to take a crack at one of the command centers, and you think I'm going to miss out on that? No way."

"Fine. Do what you want." I looked over at Merlin.

"How long?"

"Four hours should give me enough time to fix this right up and peek over the rest." He said, waving at the other things.

* * *

Oh, the suspense.

I have to admit, creating gadgets is fun. Making them work realistically, not as fun, but interesting.

The usual plea to review. Thanks.

"Four hours it is." I said. Merlin gave me a nod and I vanished from the room.


	9. Sneaking in Plain Sight

Four hours later on the dot, just like we had agreed, I appeared in Merlin's apartment. He was sitting at his desk, looking over the selection of gadgets I had pulled from his storeroom. He ran a hand through his hair, now spiked to points from messing with it while he worked, and sighed.

"Ready?" I asked. Merlin started and turned around.

"Don't _do_ that, Kate!" He scowled at me. The scowl faded slightly as he took in my appearance.

It had almost been like getting into a costume for a play. After a shower and a nap, I had spent the last hour getting ready. I had gone all out for this little excursion.

I had used a rinse to dye my hair a darker shade of brown. It was pulled back into a ponytail, the hanging hair given a slight curl. Using a darker foundation, I had given my normally pale skin a slightly tanned look. I had also unearthed a pair of weak glasses. I had used them as part of a persona before, and knew from experience that I could wear them for hours without getting a headache. I don't need glasses, having perfect vision. I just wore them for fun.

I also dressed for the part. A nondescript black outfit, perfect for sneaking around in at night. Black shoes. Black cap. Even the bag I had slung over my shoulder was black. (Overkill. I know, I know.)

"Aren't you going a little… over the top?" He asked.

"Maybe. But I have this." I opened the pack and pulled out a long white lab coat and flourished it.

"What'll you need that for?" Griffin asked from the door to the storeroom.

"Camouflage. Your camo needs to suit your surroundings." I unclipped the tag from the front and slid it out of the plastic coat. It had a picture of me looking official on it, as well as a fake bar code, a blank strip, on the back. In the pocket of the lab coat were two more such cards.

"I assume you have a name for me?" I asked.

"Gottcha one. A doctor."

"Where's the real doctor?"

"On a mission on the other side of the world. Luckily for us, it's all hush hush, so the average grunt won't know a thing about it."

"Excellent. And since he's insisting, whose my associate?"

"I didn't find anything else that will work out well. Just give him a generic name."

"How generic?" Griffin asked, frowning.

"Hello, Dr. John Doe. Lovely weather today?"

"Isn't that the name they give dead people whose name they don't know?"

"Yes. How clever of you."

"Oh, just drop it." I demanded, glaring at the both of them. Boys. Honestly. "Merlin, where's the lab?"

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. "You're not going to like this."

"Tell me anyway."

"Really, really, really not going to like it."

"I let you know when I start caring. Tell me."

Merlin studied my face.

"The Paladin's secret lab is beneath the Eiffel Tower." I felt my face go white. Merlin paused to let the news sink in, then continued to rattle off facts.

"It's the equivalent of thirteen floors underground. The complex if set out in an X formation. The entire thing is devoted to bioengineering, but each branch has a separate project. Each branch can be closed off with a vacuum seal in the event of contamination. The only way to access the branches is through the central hub, which is the nerve center of the place, and heavily guarded."

I swallow, digesting the news. "Well. That's going to be tricky. Think the Houdini will be up to the task?"

"Probably. If you want to get going, you better go." Merlin had pulled the tag out of my hands while he had been talking. How he handed it back to me, the borrowed name embossed on the front under my picture. I clipped the ID onto the front of the coat and wrapped it back into a bundle and stuffed it into the pack. One by one, Merlin handed me the gadgets to be tucked into the pack. The square flashlight, nicknamed Lightning. Something that looked like a large pocketknife. I named that the Houdini. A heavy duty flashlight with a red cover over the top called the redlight. The concussor. The cube like monitor of the pulse ox. I zipped it shut and swung it over my shoulder.

"Here." Merlin lifted ribbon necklace with a locket the size of my thumb on it.

"What's this?" I asked, taking the black ribbon and lifting it over my head.

"It's a work in progress."

I paused. "If this blows up in my face…" I meant that literally. Not to many times you can say that.

"Don't worry, it won't."

I shrugged and dropped the pendant around my neck. Tucking it under my shirt.

"So. Tell me what I'm looking for."

An hour later I was sitting on a bench, the Eiffel Tower slicing through the skyline behind me. Griffin was walking down the sidewalk towards me. He had suggest we arrive separately, and I had agreed. I opened one eye as he reached my bench.

"Ready?" I asked. He nodded. I stood and stretched. Together we walked into one of the shops lining the streets. This one sold high end jewelry. Browsing through the store, I nonchalantly slipped into the back room. On one side of the break room was a door. The lock on the door was for a key card.

"Make sure no one comes in." I said to Griffin. From the side pocket I pulled the Houdini out. In the place of the pull out blades was a black card, similar to a key card, only in reverse. I held down one of the buttons on the side and swiped the card through the scanner. A light flashed on the Houdini.

Pulling one of the blank cards out of my pocket, I held it next to the Houdini card and pressed the adjacent button.

The first swipe had allowed the Houdini to pick up the magnetic combination that would open the door. Now, by placing the charged card next to a blank one and running a current through it, the blank card could temporarily hold the same charge as the key that would open the door.

A red light flashed on the Houdini. I slipped it back in my pocket and swiped the blank card. The door opened with a click.

Hey, the explanation might be a little lengthy, but it works.

I hissed for Griffin to come as I opened the door. There was a bing and another door slid open, revealing an elevator. We stepped in and the door closed.

"Quick." I whispered. Opening my back pack again, I pulled out the two lab coats, slipping into one as I handed the other to Griffin. From the bottom of the pack I pulled several thick portfolios of papers and placed them on top of the gadgets. The Houdini I kept in my pocket, as well as the blank cards. The one I had magnetized would go blank in five minutes. If not, I could always hit it with a hammer.

The elevator doors opened and we stepped out into the center of the lab.

By some stroke of luck, the labs were deserted. Dusk was just falling over Paris, so the scientist must have wrapped up for the day. Only one security guard was sitting in a glass walled booth, watching a bank of monitors.

I purposely walked towards one of the three wings, even though I had no idea which one it was. The important thing was to look like we knew where we were going. Otherwise, we were questionable. Basic rule of sneaking.

Praying that the code was the same, I slid the still-magnetized card into the slot. The door slid open and we stepped into the deserted lab.

"Start looking. It's a regular sized book, blank green cover. Also keep an eye out from a flash drive. You'll know it when you see it."

"What color?" He asked, starting to look over the computers.

"Bright pink. Has a nova sticker on it."

This lab was empty of my research. In fact, the only thing in the lab were empty Petri dishes. Hundreds of them, filled with medium and ready to receive bacteria. It was weird. I had never seen so many empty dishes in my life. If they wanted to make a bunch of bacteria in a hurry…

Not liking where that thought was taking me, I motioned to Griffin that we were leaving.

He followed me out the door.

We were halfway between the previous wing and the next when the guard in the box called out. I stopped, waiting for him to trot over.

"Hey! I'm going to need to see some identification." He stopped in front of me, blocking our access to the next wing of the complex. He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled in what was probably supposed to be an intimidating way.

It didn't work too well. He was young, probably just hired on or however the Paladin's chose their people. Probably trying to prove himself. He had to work at it; he was a good three inches shorter that I am, and I'm not a giant.

"Certainly." I said calmly, feeling Griffin start to bristle behind me. I pulled the lapel of my coat aside so he could see the name tag. "Dr. Hannah Kinder. I'm a physicist from the United States. This is my associate."

"And what are you doing here?"

"We were called over for a special experiment."

"And I suppose you have documentation? I'll need to see it."

"This is of the upmost importance…"

"Riiight." He said, looking smug. "I'm sure it is. However, if you want to get past me, I'll have to see your paperwork."

I pushed my glasses farther down my nose with a fingertip so I could glare at him over the top.

"Are you questioning me, soldier?" I asked quietly. He paused, looking uncertain. "I suppose it might not occur to you that there are more important things going on than your self confidence. The higher-up's called me in on an urgent assignment, and they would not appreciate it if I were… delayed. Perhaps you would like to explain why?"

"It… it. Can't be that hard." He scoffed.

I gave him a cold smile. The smile a wolf might give it's prey when it's sensing a kill.

"Oh? And I suppose you think you could do better?" He shrugged.

Griffin growled slightly under his breath. "No, no. Leave the boy be. After all, he think's he's smart. Perhaps he would like to share with us the speed of light? The Schwarzschild radius of a super massive black hole? How about explaining Einsteins theory of relativity? Or he could give me the exact steps to manipulating one gene in a string of millions."

With each suggestion the unfortunate guard had quailed a little bit more. I drew myself up to my full height.

"Unless you can tell me all of those things, you have no right to tell me what is and isn't important. But you wanted to see paperwork, didn't you?"

"No. No, it's fine." He said hurriedly, beckoning us onward. As I swwpet past he retreated to his glass box.

I let us into the next wing.

"That was a close call." I sighed, leaning against the wall for a second.

"That was brilliant." Griffin said.

I grinned at him. "If I didn't have to stay on the DL, and if it weren't a crimial waste of my skills, I'd be an actress."


	10. Discoveries and Sabotage

Griffin raised his foot to take a step forward just as my eyes noticed the tiny pinpricks of holes set in the wall, an inch or so above the floor. I grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"What?"

"Lasers." I pulled out a squirt bottle. The fine haze of water drifted through the air, revealing the crisscrossing beams of light. I looked around the room, taking in every detail.

"Jump?" He asked. I shook my head and pointed to a digital screen set in the wall. There was a sequence running across the screen.

"I've seen that before. They have gravity flux sensors in the walls. Jump, and they'll go off. They won't stop us from jumping though, so use it as a last resort."

"So what do we do now?" He asked, exasperated.

"What _you_ can do is be quiet for a minute so I can think." I said absently.

Gravity flux sensors took a lot of power. And I mean a _lot_ of power. I had to rig two generators plus the power that I was allowed from the grid to get my borrowed ones to run. So much power needs a way to get to the panel, which meant cables. Big, fat, physical cables. Odds are the lasers were powered with the same cables. Unless the designers were paranoid. Which is understandable, given their line of work. But still.

So, one power source, one bunch of cables.

The only question was, where? There would have to be a junction of some kind…

Guessing, something a real scientist would never do, I took out the pulse ox and taped it to the wall between the first of the lasers and the gravity sensor. I crossed my fingers, prayed it wouldn't blow up again, and pushed the button. The screen glowed to life, accompanied by a sound like a swarm of bees. The lasers on the ground flickered and died. I grinned. For all that he's hard to deal with, Merlin does good work.

"Start looking." I told Griffin. Set along the opposite wall as the door was a bank of computers. I settled into a chair and brought the monitor to life. The database was password guarded, but a simple virus from a flash drive I never let leave my person cracked it wide open. I began my search of their system, tuning out the noise Griffin was making as he looked around.

I'm not sure how many tense minutes passed before Griffin spoke up.

"Found it." He called at the same time as I swore quietly.

"Yeah, but they already downloaded everything and scanned it into the computer. Not only that, but they plugged it into to their own progress." I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

"They were halfway there already. I just saved them a year or two of extra research."

"Research for what?" Griffin came over and dropped my journal on the desk. I picked it up and absently tucked it into my backpack.

"That's not important. What _is_ important is that they sent it out to all their other research labs."

"What about this one?"

I looked at the plans and remembered something that Merlin had said. Add in thousands of Petri dishes, my journal…

"Ohhhhhh no they didn't." I said softly, my mind trying to wrap around what the Paladin's were attempting to pull off.

"Didn't what?"

"Didn't do that. They're growing bacteria. If they've already started, then it could get into the ventilation if not properly contained, _but_ we are underground, _but_ there is an elevator shaft, and there has to be ventilation somewhere. If that's what they're actually trying to do, which is not certain, and there are many posibilities…"

"KATE! You're babbling."

"If they already started the process of growing the bacteria, then… the only way to destroy all of it would be to firebomb this place." I saw Griffin's eyes light up.

"NOT that we're going to do that. We're under the Eiffel Tower for crying out loud." I snapped at him. "Here. Take the redlight and jump over. Shine it on all the dishes."

"What will that do?" He asked.

"The wavelength will tear apart vital nutrients in the matrix."

"Wha…"

"Don't question. Just do." I had barely finished speaking before he was gone.

I downloaded everything on their current project to the virus drive and began to dig deeper. I may not be a wizard with technology, but I can find my way around the basic system.

By the time Griffin appeared next to the computer I had dug up something interesting. Interesting in an end-of-the-world type of way.

"Done?"

"Yep."

"Everything?"

"Every one, right down to the tank of gunk they use." He said smugly. I raised an eyebrow. I wouldn't have thought to look for a back up supply.

"Nice. I found where they send the bulk of their research. It's sent by cable to a local tower, then beamed to this location." I tapped a dot in the middle of a jungle. "Kinda secluded."

"So we _can_ firebomb this one?"

I had to smile. "If it comes to that. And if we can find just the right ingredients that go boom." I stuffed everything in my pack and shouldered it.

Calmly, serenely, we walked out the door and past the security box.

"You'll receive my report soon. Hope nothing but the science ends up in it." I said to the guy, giving him a pointed glare. He flinched and kept his head down. The ride up the security elevator was harrowing. I was tapping my foot against the floor the entire time, after taking both lab coats back.

"What does that thing do, anyway?" Griffin asked.

"What thing?" I asked, my eyes riveted to the fine line between the elevator door and the wall.

"That pulse ox thingy."

"It sucks up the electricity into itself with an electromagnet and reroutes it past the sensors, basically making the electricity skip over the sensors. They go out like a light without being picked up. Merlin's idea. The guy's in love with electromagnets."

"Whatever. Sorry I asked." The doors opened. Luckily the break room was empty, allowing us to slide out through the store and into the street. We walked several blocks, me with jitters all the way, before we jumped.

Wet, green leaves closed over my head, one giant frond almost smacking me in the face. I staggered on the uneven ground, grabbing a nearby vine to keep from falling over.

Someone touched my arm and I whirled around, biting the inside of my lip to keep from screaming.

Griffin put a finger to his lips and nodded over my shoulder. I twisted to look. Looming up out of the dusk of the forest floor was a tall, gray, boxlike building. A massive generator was sitting on our side of the building, a larger box that held the switches was attached next to it.

"In my backpack, there's a cell phone, kinda chunky. See if you can call Merlin on it. Speed dial two." I felt him taking the phone out. It was an older version that Merlin had revamped to connect directly to the satellites, even if you were a thousand miles away from a tower. Which we were. I had never had a need to test it, so there was a fifty-fifty chance it actually worked. Merlin's gadgets normally took three times to perfect. Some things were on their tenth model.

While Griffin made the call, I studied the building. There was a door in the wall, locked with a key card slot and what looked like an eye scanner. Wouldn't be too much of a problem.

I began to gingerly pick my way through the undergrowth, spraying ahead of me with the mister. I didn't want to step into a motion detector if I could help it.

To my disbelief, I made it all the way to the door without anything happening. Breathing a sigh of relief, I pried the door off the case of switches and took a look at it. What I saw made me raise my eyebrows.

"I salute you, sir."* I muttered to the unknown engineer. "Triple locks on the switches. Thumbprint scanners, keycard swipes, and actual key holes." I shook my head and took out the Houdini.

"Are you going to do the key swipe thing?" Griffin asked from behind me.

"No. Aside from being disguised as a pocketknife, it is, in fact," I flipped open a miniature pair of scissors. "A pocketknife."

I ignored the fancy switches and went straight for the wires, peeling away the plastic coating. Leaving the wires connected, I used a knife to pry open the casing around the pulse ox.

"What are you doing?"

"Hot wiring the door."

"Thought you can only do that with cars?"

"It's possible to hot wire anything with wires." I said with a crooked smile. I dropped half the casing on the ground, revealing the inner guts of the device. In the center was the ring of metal wrapped in copper coils. Black plastic on either side held twin batteries to absorb extra power, and resistors to make sure the batteries didn't explode. There were wire that connected the batteries. I yanked these out and stripped them. Then I wrapped them around the exposed wires from the switches and pushed the button.

The lights on the door went out. I grabbed and exposed ridge and pulled. The door creaked open as I pulled against the machine.

A pair of hands larger than mine grabbed the door and together we tugged it open.

"I couldn't get a signal." Griffin told me as we looked at the dark hall. "So what's the plan?"

"There isn't one."

"So we're…"

"Flying blind and hoping to high heaven nothing goes wrong." I grinned at him. "Shall we?"

* * *

Hint: Reviewing just might speed up the process of writing the next chapter ;)

* This line is from a tv show. Anyone want to venture a guess as to which one?


	11. Things get testy

We took turns slipping through the deserted halls. Nothing was labeled, so the best we could hope for was to stumble upon the lab. Or a computer I could hack into. Either would work.

I stuck my hand in my pocket to make sure that I still had the flash drive. My fingers grazed something else. Oops.

"Here, before I forget again." I whispered. Griffin held out his hand and I dumped two foam earplugs into his palm.

"What are these for?"

"The concussor. I just hope we won't need them, but if we're forced to use it you'll want them." He shrugged and put them in. Once I had settled my pair we continued.

"This looks promising." I said, stopping outside a door with a biohazard sign on it. It was locked with an ordinary deadbolt.

"Do you know how to pick locks?" I asked. Griffin gave me a look.

"We're jumpers. We don't need to open locks. And why would I know how to pick a lock?"

"You just seemed like that kind of guy." I opened the Houdini to the pair of toothpick/screwdrivers and knelt down next to the lock. Five minutes later the lock clicked.

"Why do _you _know how to pick a lock?"

"I didn't have much free time in college, but I spent it constructively."

"You didn't answer the question."

"Would you like an irrelevant answer, or would you like to go first?"

We slipped inside and closed the door. I checked for every sort of tripwire I knew. Coming up blank, I walked across the room and settled at the computer bank. As soon as I touched the keyboard the screen flashed red and a buzzing alarm went off.

"You better see this." Griffin called over the alarm. I knocked the chair over as I jumped up.

Griffin was standing by a floor-to-ceiling window, staring into the room beyond. I looked through the glass and groaned. Row upon row of shelves covered in Petri dishes. Hundreds of mediums, giving life to quadrillions of bacteria. Bacteria that contained a deadly twist of DNA.

"Well this makes me feel slightly better, in a warped way." I muttered. "If they were this prepared, then it's not entirely my fault. I like that."

"Like what?"

"Nothing. Later. We need to get in there, without jumping. Actually, scratch that." I grabbed the redlight from his hand and jumped.

Another, higher pitched alarm went off as soon as the wormhole opened. I ignored the extra alarm and began to shine the blood colored beam on the Petri dishes.

An even higher pitched whine, more like a crackle, filled the air. I refused to look up from my hasty work. However, I was forced to when the air filled with dry static electricity, enough to force my hair to struggle in its restraints.

My head buzzed as I tried to jump out. I stared at m hands as they flickered. The static was hanging in the air like a curtain, preventing me from punching through the spacetime fabric into the next room.

Griffin shouted something through the glass as the door to the lab room slammed open. I saw a single security guard burst through the door, taser drawn.

I looked away for a second, searching for another door. Spotting one down the hall, I turned and waved for Griffin to join me. By the time I looked back, the security guard was lying on the ground, his own taser barbs stuck in his chest.

My accomplice jumped over next to me an immediately flinched from the electricity.

"Sorry. Door down there." I was already running, the beam still flitting among the shelves.

"What is that?" He asked, hands over his ears.

"Some sort of generator. Just run."

I refused to slow down as we approached the end of the hall and ended up slamming into the wall. I immediately dropped to my knees, putting me on eye level with the electric card swipe, an upgrade from the deadbolt on the other door. A few seconds with the Houdini and the door slid open.

The door opened into another long room of cabinets filled with petri dishes. These, however, had visible cultures of bacteria on them. Just how extensive was this project? Cold dread filled my stomach.

We ran down the long hallway. Spaced periodically were thick bunches of cable that ran to heaters, one for every shelf of bacteria. The room wasn't the best lit place in the building, and in the gloom Griffin's foot caught on one of the cables. He went flying forward, on hand outstretched. He hit the rack, making it spin away on its wheels. A few cultures fell to the ground.

I tugged him to his feet and we kept running.

I opened the door at the end of this room with a single swipe from the key card. The door opened into a hall way. The static buzzing faded.

"Come on." I said, twisting to take a turn deeper into the building. I jumped to the corner and peered around it.

"What are we looking for, exactly?" Griffin asked.

"Computers. I need to get into their system."

"You already tried that, remember?" He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. "We don't have a plan, and we don't have any idea what this place is like. As much as I hate to say this, we need to leave. We can return later, when we have a plan."

"There _is _not later. This is our only chance. You don't understand…"

"Then explain it to me."

"We don't have time…"

"You got that right." A new voice said_. _We turned and looked at the same time at the dark figure standing at the end of the hall.

There was a crack that made my heart stutter. And then my heart stopped entirely.

Red was spreading across Griffins shirt. He staggered slightly, then regained his balance with hate in his eyes.

I grabbed his arm and jumped just as a buzz filled my ears. A powerful jolt shocked my back into reality.

"Static. Won't worry. It won't hurt unless you jump." The spiky-headed Paladin stepped out of the shadows. "This, however, will. But not for long." He leveled a handgun at me.

I jumped and ran at the same time, dragging Griffin behind me. I couldn't jump out, but trying was making my form flicker, like in a strobe light. Coupled with bad lighting and the movement, I was making it pretty difficult for the gun toting Paladin, the only one I had ever seen come to think of it, to get a good shot in.

Not that he didn't try. Bullets hit the wall, the ceiling, the floor. One even grazed my arm. I could feel warm blood running over my skin as we rounded a corner, jerking to a stop. Griffin leaned against the wall, one hand pressed to his shirt. Blood was leaking around his fingers. I refused to get queasy.

There was a muffled click and a curse. Porcupine Head back there had forgotten that, unlike in movies, handguns had a clip with a limited number of bullets. I could hear him fumbling around for a new clip. Over everything was the sound of a door slamming open and feet in the other hall. They were surrounded and cornered, unable to escape.

"Get down on the ground. Sit back against the wall and put your head on it. Close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears." I said, quickly but amazingly calm, as I frantically searched for the concussor. Griffin didn't say anything. I thought he was holding out well. I wouldn't have been able to, that much I was certain of. I'm a sissy about pain.

I tapped the timer up to ten seconds and rolled it down he hall just as the contingent of guard rounded the corner. These were armed with lightning rods. They yelled as they saw us, rushing forward. The small blue container rolling along the floor went unnoticed.

I sat against the wall, pulled my knees up to my chest, rested my head against the wall, and put my fingers in my ears over the earplugs. I peeked through my lashes, watching the concussor rattle to a stop. I watched as the screen flash, counting down.

3...

2...

1...

0

A wave of high pitched, high volume sound rushed through the air. It pressed my body against the wall. If my head been even an inch away, it would have been slammed into the concrete with enough force to give me a concussion. Even through the earplugs, my eardrums protested the loud, compacted noise.

A fraction of a second and everything was silent. I got to my feet, ears ringing. The security was on the floor, unconscious or whimpering in pain.

I pulled Griffin to his feet. "Let's go."

"What was that?" He asked, dazed from pain and noise.

"Sound travels through air, making molecules vibrate. A large pulse would create a physical wave, strong enough to send a person flying. Exhibit A." The guards were scattered like a giant wind had picked them up and thrown them. I noticed that several were bleeding without cuts, the sound wave having burst tiny veins in their skin. A couple had maroon eyes for the same reason. Every single one of them was bleeding from the ears. I looked away.

"What?"

"A sound grenade." Running foot steps behind us. I turned, held out the lightning, and pressed the button while squeezing my eyes shut. The flash was bright enough to sear my retinas even with my eyes closed. Musta been awful for whoever was on the other end.

We limped out the door and into the undergrowth. I tugged the pulse ox from the box and jumped, taking Griffin with me.

Scenes flashed in front of my eyes. Then we appeared in Merlin's room. He leapt up from his chair, staring. I guided Griffin, who was on the point of collapsing, into the vacated seat.

"My god, Kate. What happened?"

"I was an idiot. We tried to infiltrate another compound blind, and he got shot. Do you know a doctor? He's going to need surgery."

Griffin doubled over in pain, and I saw a red splotch on the chair. "At least the bullet went completely through. And if it had punctured anything vital he'd probably be dead by now."

"How bad is it?" Merlin asked.

"He'll live if we can get him to a doctor. Do you have a friend who owes you a favor, or am I going to have to take him to a general hospital?"

"Not him, the mission. You wouldn't have been so stupid if something big wasn't at stake."

"I'll tell you about it later. Oh wait… I haven't talked to her in months, but maybe…" I slid my arm under Griffin's and gently levered him to his feet. "Come on, one more stop." He mumbled something and tried to stand. I jumped.

The last tinges of light were fading from the French window we were facing. Our shadows were being thrown forward by the flickering candle light behind us.

"What the…" Someone started. I heard chairs being pushed back. Somehow I managed to turn Griffin and myself around.

A couple was standing up from a candle lit table. The man was tall, dark haired, and scowling. The woman had a medium build, curves, and long black-brown ringlets. Her smooth features and coppery skin made her look stunning in the soft light.

"Hi, Amy." I said. "I'm sorry to burst in on you like this, but it's an emergency."

"Kate! I barely recognized you. How have you been, darling?" She came towards me with open arms, then stopped. "Is that blood on your arm?"

"Yes, it is. But he needs your help more than I do." The stomach of Griffin's shirt was maroon with blood. Amy's eyes were narrow as she assessed the damage. She nodded tightly to me and turned. I caught a glimpse of the alluring smile on her face. Amy saw relationships as a game, and worked the players without mercy. She was also the best trauma surgeon in New Orleans, a place infamous for the high rate of… injuries.

"Sweetie," She started as she sauntered up to the man. Her voice was like honey. "I'm so very sorry, but I need to go."

"But…"

"Don't worry." She laid a finger on his lips. "We'll pick up where we left off tomorrow."

The poor guy was hooked. He nodded and let Amy guide him to the door. She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, then shut the door in his face, locking it.

I rolled my eyes. "You always did have to bait them."

"But sweetie, that's half the fun." She protested, coming up on Griffins other side. "Men are so… malleable. Would you like to lead or shall I?"

"I always was better with large groups." I jumped to her hospital. We landed in a broom closet, one that was locked from the inside and only Amy had the keys to. How she managed to set that up, I'll never know. Amy just has a way with people.

The closet was just outside the doors to the trauma center. Between us Amy and I walked Griffin over to a bed. I settled him in while Amy pulled a lab coat on over her blush cocktail dress. She didn't even seem to notice that it was stained with blood. I smiled. For all the she was a flirt and a socialite, she was a really, really good friend.

"Call for a team." She said, rolling up her sleeves and grabbing a stethoscope. Her fingers were already on Griffins wrist, feeling for a pulse. I turned to the intercom.

"Dr. Veritez requesting a trauma team to room T13."

"Don't screw with me, Eric. Amy has the night off, and I refuse to play your pranks." A female snapped on the other end of the wire.

"Uhhh…" Amy brushed by me.

"Sarah, this is Amy. If you don't call a team to T13 this instant, my gunshot victim's life is on your head. Understand, sweetie?"

"Right away, Dr. Veritez." The voice on the other end was suddenly serious. A second later the PA system buzzed.

"It's all in the message, honey. You just have to get a tougher one."

"Hers is tough enough." Griffin croaked. I looked over. His eyes were barely open, and his face was white.

"So you're still with us." Amy said. "Always good. Nice to meetch'a." Always something to say when sliding an IV needle into a patients arm. I'll have to remember that one. Might improve my relationships with the people I come across. When I'm not shattering their eardrums with a wave of concentrated sound.

"Griffin, Amy. Amy, Griffin." Amy grabbed griffin's limp hand and shook it.

A group of three nurses/doctors, dressed in scrubs, came into the room.

"Dr. Veritez. We didn't expect to see you today."

"Something came up, per usual."

"Sarah said it was a gunshot wound."

"Through the abdominal cavity. Pulse is slow, patient has severe blood loss. BP 90/50. Patient was conscious, but has regressed. I want an x-ray and an MRI to assess damage and see if we are dealing with punctured organs."

"There shouldn't be." I had discovered a chair and was slouched in it, suddenly feeling drained. "He's had that for at least ten minutes. He'd be dead by now if any organs were punctured."

The team noticed me for the first time. "Friends and family need to wait outside."

"Take the patient to the MRI and someone give him 20 CC's of blood. Better make it O-neg. Megan, see to her arm. I'll help with the MRI." They wheeled Griffin out of the room.

One of the nurses stayed behind. "Arm?"

I lifted the requested limb, showing the graze. It was deeper than I though it would be. My sleeve was soaked in blood. It was a wonder I was still conscious. I had probably been going on adrenaline. Quite a useful chemical, that. Always there when you need it, and sometimes when you don't. Good old time bending adrenaline.

A sane part of my brain realized I was rambling.

"Come on, let's get you a room. And I'll get my sewing kit. Anesthetic?"

"Please." I sat down heavily on the bed and dropped my head into my hands. The world was starting to spin slightly.

"Here." A cup of juice entered my field of vision. Unfortunately, the effect of the gesture was spoiled when she set a syringe and needle next to the cup. I made a face.

"What's your name?"

"Alice." I said, staring resolutely at the opposite wall.

"This will sting."

"Of course it will." I mumbled. Despite my resolve, I couldn't help flinching as the needle entered my skin and the anesthetic started to burn.

"If your worried about you friend, don't be. Dr. Veritez is the best surgeon we have on staff. Maybe the best in the state."

I hope so. I didn't think it was bad, but I can be wrong. Occasionally.

Please don't be one of those times. Please.

* * *

I have come to the conculsion that no one is reading this. Why?

Becuase no one reviews.

It's really sad.

So if you are one of the one people who read this, please review.

Prove me wrong.


	12. Going Viral

I really am truly sorry about the delay. It's been a busy summer.

* * *

"Hey. Glad to see you're still with us." I said, sliding into a chair.

"Takes more than a bullet to put me out. Where are we?" Griffin asked. His voice was still slightly slurred from the anesthesia. Amy and her team had closed the wounds in his sides. Like I had suspected, the bullet hadn't punctured any vital organs.

"New Orleans General Hospital. The top surgeon is my friend. She fixed you up."

"Yeah. Amy, right?"

I nodded. The door opened and Merlin stepped into the room.

"They just opened the door to visitors." He told me. "I would have jumped, but they probably have watches on all the hospitals." Merlin sat in the other chair.

"Looking for anyone with gunshot wounds. I wish them luck." I snorted. The boys gave me strange looks and I shrugged.

"This _is_ New Orleans."

"Ah."

"Right."

There was a moment of silence.

"So, how did the mission go?" Merlin asked.

"Bad." Griffin and I responded at the same time.

Merlin made a show of looking around. "I gathered that much."

"You know, I was thinking…" I began. Merlin sighed and Griffin muttered "Uh-oh."

"I was thinking that we saw that there were a couple other labs, right Griffin?"

"Right."

"So, if we take the time to plan properly and prepare…"

"No. It's too dangerous." Griffin cut me off with a shake of his head.

"But…"

"NO."

"You don't…"

"They'll be _waiting_ next time, Kate. No matter how much you prepare, they will be ready, and they will shoot to kill. We won't get so lucky next time."

"Oh, come on. They can't shoot to save their lives. If they could, we'd both be dead."

Griffin snorted.

"He's the resident expert on Paladin fighting, Kit-Kate. Listen to him." Merlin broke in.

"But you don't understand how important this is!" I whisper-screamed, remembering at the last minute that we were in a hospital.

"Then help me to." Griffin said in an even voice. I looked over at him. His face was calm and his eyes were clear of the fog of sedatives.

"I'm more intelligent than you give me credit for." He told me.

My shoulders slumped. He was right. As per usual.

I stood, and closed the door and drew the curtains until we were in our own little world. I checked the room for bugs, just for something to do. Finally I paced, trying to figure out what to say.

"Just spit it out, Kate." Merlin said.

I stopped and leaned my head against the wall. Actually thinking about what they were doing, the whole scope of possibilities was making me tremble in my boots. Theoretically. I don't wear boots.

"A virus." I finally spat out. I turned to face Merlin and Griffin, watching their reactions. "That's what I saw on their plans. The Paladins are using _my_ work to retroengineer a superbug to target jumpers. They've tested it over and over again. If I have any experience at reading charts at all, those !$%1's have made it resistant to almost every known anti-viral ever created."

Merlin leaned back in his chair, contemplative and shell shocked at the same time.

"Good God, they wouldn't."

I gave him a sarcastic look. "Yes, they would and you know it. These lunatics won't stop for anything. Even the end of the world."

"How can they make it target jumpers?" Griffin asked.

"We have a marker in our DNA, a certain gene that allows us to jump. A virus can be made to specifically target that coding. It would try to rip it out, and in the process, destroy the entire cell."

"And if every cell in your body carries the gene…" Horror dawned in his eyes.

"Exactly." Silence.

"But they couldn't have that much…" Merlin began. I shook my head.

"We saw huge rooms of cultures. Thousands of dishes, in that one lab. Just think if there are several more…" My voice trailed off. Merlin sucked in a breath, thinking.

"How much?"

"Probably enough to release into every major city in the globe." I said bleakly. How often did we travel around the world? Eve in a single city, how many jumpers passed through over the course of the day?

They could also just select specific locations. Popular tourist spots or cities. How many times did I visit Paris in the course of a week? If I wasn't caught up in work, at least three times.

We sat there in depressed silence until Amy came in.

"My next appointment canceled, so I have a few minutes." She said cheerfully. Amy looked around, taking in our gloomy faces. "What's wrong?"

So I had to explain the situation to her. Amy slowly sat on the edge of the bed. She clutched at Griffin's hand, and I almost burst out laughing at the look on Griffin face. Amy had a slightly fuzzy understanding of boundaries. But her next words snapped me back.

"What if it mutated?" She asked, horrified. "I'm assuming they have a cure but what if…"

"Knowing these people, they didn't bother with a cure, or even a vaccine." Griffin said, trying to tactfully remove his hand from Amy's grasp.

"A mutated super bug. The stuff of science fiction, the very real threat that no one takes seriously. The end of the world." Merlin's face was pale. "They wouldn't dare…"

"They would and we all know it, so let's skip the hopefulness." I snapped, starting to feel fed up with the whole 'they wouldn't' thing. "These are the Paladins. Nothing is beyond them." I met everyone's eyes, making sure no one was going to disagree. Silence all around.

"Now that that's settled, the main question is what are we going to do about it?"

Amy cleared her throat. "If you could get a sample of the virus," She began hesitantly. "I know a biochemist…"

"You people know everyone, don't you?" Griffin shook his head. "She knows a techno wizard and a star surgeon, you know a biochemist hose probably the best in his field, and I don't even know who he's connected to." He grumbled.

We laughed. "The geek community is very connected." I told him with a straight face. "All around the world because of our superior technology. As for Merlin, he doesn't know anyone besides me because he's so paranoid he stays shut up in that cave he calls a home."

"Speaking of which, you did skip before you showed up at my home, right?"

Merlin asked, anxious. Honestly, of all the things to be worried about right now, he would pick that one?

"Like a stone." I responded, hiding my irritation.

"Skipped?" Griffin and Amy asked at the same time.

"Jumping to several different places to keep them from using their machine to follow." Merlin explained.

"Skipping through spacetime like a stone skipping over the surface of the water." I said. "If you're feeling a bit mean you can take them to hard to reach places."

"Such as?" Griffin asked with a raised eyebrow. I grinned.

"Over the Mariana Trench."

"Back to business." Amy said sternly. But she was smiling. "You get a sample, and my friend can find you a cure." She glanced at her watch. "In the mean time, I have an appointment to make. I'll be back later to check on your stitches and get you a discharge. Just rest until then." She said to Griffin before standing gracefully and waltzing out.

We spent the next five hours planning. Location after location, diagram after diagram, plot after plot, trick after trick. There were gadgets, arguments, points made, and whisper yells. There were even a few insults thrown.

Lunch had come and gone by the time I laid a single sheet of paper on the table.

"This is it." I sighed, running my fingers through my short hair. There were stacks of paper lying all over the small room, but this one thin sheet was the finished product.

"The Australian lab. Located in the outback. Here are the plans…" I spread a blue print on the light box used for x-rays and placed their hand-drawn diagram over. It showed the quickest rout to the lab, including symbols showing where each of the gadgets was to be used.

"This is a simple snatch and run operation. No jumping inside the walls; we don't want them knowing that we have a sample. Now… Hello Amy." I stopped as Amy slouched in a chair and coughed. "Rough day?"

"I think I ate something off with lunch, and I was on my feet for two hours in the OR." Amy sighed. I continued to go through the plan, debating minor points with Merlin and Griffin.

I was interrupted as Amy gave a loud cough. I paused, expecting her to insert some comment. Instead she kept coughing, deep lung-wrenching coughs that made me wince.

"Anyway… Are you alright?" I asked as Amy leapt to her feet and dashed to the bathroom. She emerged a few tense minutes later, pale and shaking.

"I'm calling a nurse." I said, reaching for the button.

"Don't…" She began, but it was too late. "Kate, I'm fine."

"No, you're not." I argued back. "When did you start feeling like this?"

"Lunch." Amy had given up. From the ashy shade of her skin, I guessed she probably didn't have the energy to keep going. She sank into the chair I had vacated.

A nurse popped her head into the room.

"What is it this time?" She sighed. "We're out of paper, and the printer is dry, and no, our computer doesn't have the power your looking for _and_ it's only for hospital staff."

"Dr. Veritaz isn't feeling well. Could you please run a test of her blood?" I said patiently.

The nurse sighed. "For what, exactly?" She asked. "There's any number of things in the human blood, in case you didn't know."

"Can you test for…?" I glanced back at Merlin and Griffin, knowing my fear was showing in my eyes. "Viruses?"

The nurse glanced at Amy and straightened. Her voice was completely serious when she answered.

"It will take a few hours, but we can." She said before leaving.

"This really isn't necessary…" Amy began. "Wait, you don't think…"

"I do." I said, my voice dead.

Amy's tan face went ashy. The room was silent as the snippy nurse came back and left with a vial of Amy's blood.

I'm not sure how long we sat there before Amy doubled over with a low moan.

Her form started to flicker, the way it did while trying to jump with lightning cables wrapped around you.

I leapt up and closed the curtains, and when I turned back Amy was gone. The fine mist of healing spacetime was still hanging in the air.

Without stopping to think I followed her through. I could hear Merlin and Griffin's yells behind me, but I ignored them. This was more important.

I landed, well, 'landed', ten feet above the surface of some body of water. In the second of freefall I had, I could see that the water was flat and grey.

Then I hit the icy water feet first. It closed over my head with a slap that made my ears ring. Fresh water slammed into my mouth, choking me. So not an ocean or a bay. A lake. No current, so not a river. Since I hadn't seen an opposite shore in my airtime, possible one of the great lakes. I kicked my legs, rising to the surface.

As my head broke the surface the sound of frantic splashing reached my ears. I swiveled in the water and saw Amy's flailing arms. I was pretty sure she could swim, but she was panicking. The water was freezing and certainly deep here; panicking was simply not an option.

I struck out for Amy. The cold was making my muscles seize up, and Amy's head disappeared. I reached the frothy spot and dove, forcing my eyes open.

There was sheer panic on Amy's face, but she managed to pull herself together enough to kick up towards me. I grabbed her arm and jumped.

A wave of intense dry heat washed over us as we slammed into a hard surface. The sun burned into my eyes. Some of the surrounding water had gotten sucked through the wormhole. It sizzled and vaporized as it hit the burning red sandstone we were sitting on.

Amy coughed the water out of her lungs. "Where are we?" She gasped.

"Somewhere in the Arizona Dessert." I responded. "What happened?"

"I have no idea." She shivered. "I… had no control. It was like when you first jump, and you have no idea what's happening. You remember?"

"Yeah. That's one thing you never forget." I muttered.

Every jumper has that one moment, the one where the world disappears in a flash, the stomach rockets down to the feet, up to the throat, and back into place, and being dumped on the face somewhere completely different. Mine was walking out of class in freshman year of college, wishing to be in the roped off and locked up observatory, then suddenly stumbling into the telescope. That had been hard to explain away to the campus authorities, especially since I had no idea what was going on either.

"You think it's the disease?" Amy asked.

"Of course it's the disease." I murmured. "Nothing else that we know of could have caused something like this."

"'Nothing else we know of'" Amy mimicked. "That's nice."

"But this is the most likely explanation. Which also means that the virus has progressed enough to start seriously affecting your body" I was talking to myself now, the scientist part of my brain taking over.

"We better get back." Amy said, wringing the rest of the water out of her curls. The hot air had already leached most of the water from our clothing, which was the reason I had brought us here."

"You or me?" She asked.

"I'll do it. You're unstable." I held out my hand, then paused as she reached forward.

"Wait." I snatched my hand back. "Here." I pulled a cloth napkin out of my pocket and handed it to her. Amy nodded and tied it over her mouth and nose.

"Contagion. Good thinking." She said. I took her wrist and we jumped back to the hospital room.

"What the he-ck happened?" Merlin demanded. Griffin expressed his feeling in stronger words.

I explained what I had happened and why I thought it had occurred.

"So then…"

"Later!" I hissed as the door opened. The nurse pulled back the curtains. She wasn't looking at us, instead she was frowning at her clipboard.

"The screen was preliminary, but it found a compound in Dr. Veritaz's blood it couldn't identify."

"Thank you, Mary." Amy straightened as much as she could. "Of what nature would this compound be?"

"I believe it is…" She glanced at me. "Of a viral nature."

We all breathed out.

"Very well. I know a biochemist that has a full quarantine facility in his lab. I'll have him fill out all the paperwork and send it to the CDC. I'm afraid I will have to leave immediately. Could you get my friend's release forms?"

The nurse nodded and left.

"Let's just jump." Griffin said.

All three of us shook our heads.

"Too many witnesses. That nurse is coming back anyway."

"Camera's on the doors."

"And some interest in our case already, thanks to whatever she found in Amy's blood."

"Fine." Griffin mumbled.

"Now, we do need to leave as fast as possible. Where's your friend?"

"Switzerland. North of Bern, I believe."

"Do you know the exact location?"

"Yes."

"Good. As soon as we're…" I paused, trying to figure out a safe distance away. Close enough that we didn't have to travel too far, but far enough to determine if we were being followed and lose our tracker.

"Five blocks, two turns." Griffin said. He shrugged when we looked at him. "It's worked for me before."

"Then I will bow to your experience." I said, giving a fancy hand twirl.

"Then it's settled." Merlin said as the nurse returned with a sheaf of papers.


	13. Murphy's Law

Of course, it couldn't be that simple. Story of my life.

As soon as we stepped out of the hospital things went from mildly-bad-but-still-in-control to all-heck-breaking-loose.

"Do you see that?" Merlin hissed in my ear as we crossed the lobby.

"Yes, I see them. Now stop it." I murmured back. _Them_ was two men in suits standing at the service desk. As hard as they were trying, they still weren't able to completely hide the shape of the lightning rods underneath their jackets.

"Just keep walking normally." Griffin told him, gripping Merlin's arm and forcing him to walk in a straight line. Amy was managing to stand on her own, without more than my hand on her elbow. We filed out of the hospital and onto the busy streets of New Orleans in the early evening. To my surprise, we even managed to get a whole block before things began to disintegrate.

Without any warning Amy, who was walking slightly in front of me, collapsed on the sidewalk. She started to flicker in and out of sight.

"Not here!" I hissed. She didn't appear to hear me. I reached to grab her arm, to pull her to her feet, but she was gone. The next second she reappeared.

People were starting to take notice, as people do. They were moving back, whispering and murmuring.

"We need to get out of here now." Griffin hissed.

As if to prove his point, an electric whine filled the air and the bricks above Merlin's head exploded. Twisting around, we could see the two guys in suits. One was aiming a lightning rod at us; the other was consulting some handheld device.

The situation was impossile. We couldn't jump; too many witnesses. No jumper liked publicity, mainly because it got you killed some dark night. We couldn't run; the crowd was panicking and scattering in all directions. That would mean leaving Amy, since no one could get hold of her.

Merlin was panicking. He started to run, moving with the crowd before I stopped him and shook him.

"Eleuthera. Go." He nodded and vanished. By that time the crowd was in full panic mode, with people going in every direction. No one was paying any attention to us, and if they were, their minds would tell them it was just a trick of the light or something. Funny how the human conscious works.

I looked around but Griffin was gone. A warning buzz reached my ears and I ducked just in time. A second cable flew through the air above my head. It wrapped around one of the people in the crowd. The woman convulsed and fell, her throat locked so she couldn't even scream.

I crouched down next to Amy, ignoring everything else. Her jumps had a rhythm to them, where she stayed for a heartbeat before jumping. I counted.

3… 2… 1…

My hand snaked out, but I was a fraction of a second off. She was gone. I took a deep breath and began counting again.

The Paladins had been fighting the crowd to get to us. But by now the people were mostly gone, giving them a clear path, and more importantly, a clear shot. They couldn't miss this time.

My focus jarred, I missed the next grab. I hissed a curse under my breath. Then, I couldn't help but twist and look.

There they were, maybe thirty feet away. The one with the weapon leveled it at me, like he knew I wouldn't jump. I took a deep breath. Maybe the presence of a strong electric field near Amy would be enough to shock her out of this state, and she would be able to jump away. Just maybe.

He pressed the trigger and time seemed to slow as adrenaline was dumped in to my veins. The cable snaked out of the tube and flew towards me.

Suddenly my vision was blocked by something, someone who appeared out of the air. I instantly recognized the jacket he was wearing.

Griffin slammed something into the ground and jumped away. By then the cable had crossed the distance between the Paladin's and me. It slammed into the pole Griffin had planted in the ground. The metal, subjected to the same laws of physics as the rest of us, wrapped around the pole. One of the weighted ends shot over my head, close enough that the electricity made my hair rise.

The Paladin's were already running. I reached behind me and, by some miracle, Amy was there. I grabbed hold of her coat and was pulled through the wormhole.

Desert. Now Orleans. Jungle. New Orleans. Crowded restaurant. New Orleans.

I jumped, taking us to a lonely slope in the middle of the Rockies. Amy must have registered the change on some level, because we didn't appear back on the streets in New Orleans. Instead it was just random.

Arctic. Air over Paris. Angel Falls. Great Wall of China. Barren, windswept field. Snow covered Mountains. Railroad track, right in front of an incoming train. Underwater in the Caribbean.

The train scared me enough that I realized we had to stop before Amy killed us both, intentionally or not.

I had never tried this before, so I prayed that it wouldn't backfire messily. Every time she jumped I jumped, taking up back to the Rockies.

Slowly, enough that I didn't notice it at first, the frequency of the jumps slowed down. Finally, we ended up sitting on the ground. I was exhausted, since my does of adrenaline had worn off. Amy was unconscious.

"You're back." Griffin said. I whipped around and fell over. My legs had gone stiff, crouched in the same position.

"How long have you been sitting there?" I asked, stretching out my legs and massaging some feeling back into them.

Griffin consulted a watch he didn't have. "A while."

"We should get back to Merlin. He's going to be freaking out." I said as I slowly stood. Pins and needles were having races up and down my legs, but I could move. Griffin came over and helped me lift Amy.

"Thanks for saving my life." I said softly.

"We're even." The guys way of saying 'you're welcome'. We jumped.

The air was warm. That was the first thing I noticed, since Amy had taken me through some of the coldest areas on the planet. Even though we had only spent a heartbeat in the Arctic Circle, I swear my nose was frostbitten.

"There you are!" Merlin exclaimed, rushing over to us.

"Come on. We're going to Bern." I said. As much as I wished we could stay on Eleuthera in the Bahamas, Amy needed help. Right now.

Before we had left the hospital she had told me where the research clinic was, as well as provided me with a very descriptive description of the place. (For some reason Jumpers need to have a mental picture of a place to jump to it. We just can't say 'I want to go to London' and be in London. We have to see a picture of a real place. No idea why.)

So I had something to go off of. It wasn't must, but it was something. I closed my eyes and did the only thing there was left to do. I jumped.

It almost seemed to take longer. Just by a fraction of a second, barely noticeable except to me. But there we were, in Switzerland in the middle of the night, outside a very benign looking, aesthetically pleasing white building. I let out the breath I had been holding.

Our quadrangle of people, technically a triangle, maneuvered down the drive and to the front door. Next to the frosted glass door was a doorbell. I reached out and pushed it.

Of course, it was only after we heard the buzzer ring that Griffin spoke up. "What are you going to say when the guard shows up?" He asked.

"A night guard won't show. Amy said he'd be here, though."

"And what, exactly, are you planning to say to him?"

I opened my mouth to tell him, and my mind went blank. Completely, irreversibly blank.

So, of course, that was when a light clicked on behind the door and it opened. A tall, heavyset man in a lab coat stood frowning at us, arms crossed in front of him. He said something in German.

"English?" I asked? "Frances?"

"Well? What are you doing here?" He demanded in English.

I said the first thing that came to my mind.

"If I offered you an once-in-a-lifetime chance to one of the greatest scientific discoveries, but you couldn't tell anyone, would you take it?" I sounded like either a game show host, a government agent, or just plain insane. From the incredulous look on his face, I would have to go with insane. He looked like he was about to slam the door in our faces.

In the first stroke of luck we had had all day, Amy started to come around. She groaned and lifted her head, so the light from the door caught her face.

"Sarah?" The scientist asked. "Sarah Franchezconi?"

"Please, I need to know that you won't tell anyone." I insisted.

He looked us over again, thinking. Finally he nodded and opened the door wider.

"Thank you." I said, sincerity in every letter.

"Let us get her somewhere to rest."

"A- Sarah needs a quarantine room. She said you had a lab equipped to handle that." I said. His face went blank.

"You would have me risk infecting my staff, and anyone else who come in, for a stranger?" he demanded.

I sighed. "She's obviously not a stranger if you're willing to open your door to her in the middle of the night. You also knew her name. I'm not stupid." Fatigue was making me sharp. "And, you're going to have to trust me on this, you can't get it." Griffin gave me a sharp look. Amy had neglected mention to him that her friend was a regular person.

"Why can I trust you?" He asked.

"Because my friend is dying." It was the only thing I could say.

He nodded and led us through the lobby and onto an elevator. Taking a keycard off his belt, he inserted it into the slot below the button panel. The bottom row of buttons, levels b1-5, lit up. He pressed one and the elevator started to move.

Like Amy had promised, this guy had a full-fledged quarantine suite in his basement. He had the works. Individual rooms with glass wall, double sets of vacuum sealed doors going into each, and a large decontamination chamber. The area outside the glass rooms was filled with lab equipment and computers complex enough to make Merlin swoon.

We laid Amy on one of the beds and sealed the door. Then the three of us went through the decontamination process, which took a good thirty minutes. We emerged dressed in plain white clothes, which we would be stuck with until we could separately go get our own.

Amy was still there when we got back. The scientist was inside the glass room in a hazmat suit, setting up monitors and taking blood samples. He had already set up an IV, and a clear fluid was slowly dripping into Amy's veins.

"What are you going to tell him?" Griffin asked. His voice was taut, and I knew he wasn't going to like my answer.

"The truth." He didn't respond, which made me feel the need to justify myself.

"He deserves the truth. He just did the equivalent of letting a hungry lion into his house while wearing meat perfume. And, if he's going to help us, then he needs to know everything. And how long do you think we can keep this a secret? With Amy losing control, it's really only a matter of time until he finds out."

"I don't like it." Griffin said.

"I know. But it's the best option we have. She needs help, and we need a vaccine. Anywhere else would turn us over to the government for quarantine. How long do you think it would take the Paladin's to get to us through an organization like that?"

He knew the answer. We both did, but no one liked to hear it said out loud. It was too nasty a truth to be spoken out loud.

Merlin joined us. "I've been outside my lab for too long. My computers need me." He complained.

"Well, you can't leave." I said.

"Why not?"

"Because we were exposed to Amy when she was sick. We need to make sure that none of us have it before we go anywhere. And then, we need to warn people. So draw up a list of jumpers you know and places where we can find them. I'll ask Amy when she wakes up."

Just then the scientist came back. He set down the tray of samples and turned to face us.

"I believe it is time for you to explain yourselves."

I took a deep breath.

"First, I'm Anne. This is Greg, and the geek is Martin. We're jumpers, which means that we have the ability to travel through localized wormholes that we can open using the electricity in our brains. This is allowed because of a certain genetic twist we have."

"Be serious."

"I am. Completely." He obviously didn't believe me, so Griffin felt obliged to give a practical demonstration. His face lost all color. I plowed ahead.

"There's an organization, known as the Paladins, who are intent on killing all jumpers. Normally they hunt us down one by one. But someone decided to use modern technology to retroengineer a supervirus to target the jumper gene. If you don't have the gene, you don't have to worry about it. Unless it mutates, which is why we need to contain it and develop a vaccine or a cure." Somehow, I managed to fit all of that in a single breath.

"Um, dude, there's a chair over there." Merlin pointed out. The scientist slowly sat down.

"She neglected to mention that." He said.

"We tend to keep quiet about it. Another thing." I cleared my throat.

"The Paladin's will use any method to get to us, including but not limited to trickery, bribery, threats against family members, and killing people guilty of association. So we put you in danger by simply being here. Are you alright with that?" He looked a little shell shocked and slightly uncomfortable.

"Which is why I'm going to say this. If they get to you or anyone you know, tell them everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. We can be gone in a second if it comes to that."

I watched him closely. For a scientist, he was taking this well. Most rationalists tend to take it badly.

"Are you sure you want us to stay?" That was the important question. I have morals, and I stick to them. I'm not going to intentionally put someone in the line of fire unless they know the risks and willingly accept it.

There was a tense silence that stretched so long that I was sure he was going to tell us to pack up and leave.

"You may stay. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to enter these samples." He left, and my shoulders sagged in relief.

* * *

Well, what do you think? Please review, and I'll try to get the next chapter up faster.


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